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Press release: Agency to inform the public whether officials report and account for their income and assets

Institute Alternative (IA) submitted recommendations to the Agency for Prevention of Corruption which are primarily aimed at improving transparency of Agency’s activities, particularly the control of assets declarations of public officials and civil servants as well as outcomes of those controls.

The reason is, primarily, poor visibility of the results of the Agency’s work during 2016. Namely, numerous decisions issued by the Agency are available on its website, but there are no systematized data on the Agency’s activities, which would enable interested parties to have an insight into Agency’s work and results, but also to know whether it contributes to efficient fight against corruption.

Recommendations are primarily aimed at improving control of assets declaration of public officials and civil servants, in particular at increasing the transparency of outcomes of conducted controls.

We recommended to the Agency to inform the public on whose assets declaration they controlled and whether they determined any irregularities, for each public official individually, by name. In other words, public should know who did not properly report income and assets and what the Agency has undertaken upon this issue. These data should be published only when proceedings are completed before the Agency and other authorities competent for the prosecution of these cases based on the Agency’s findings.

The Agency should also publish data on controls of assets declarations in cases when they controlled grounds of acquiring property and income, i.e. determined that the property and income of a public official and persons related to the public official exceed the actual income and requested detailed information and documents from public officials for the property they own. More precisely – the Agency should publish from whom the it requested additional information and documents, for which property and whether the officials were able to “justify” possession of the property. If not, the public should know this and what the Agency has undertaken from the scope of its jurisdiction to prosecute such cases. This is the only way to hold public officials, as well as the Agency tasked with controlling them, accountable to the citizens who pay for their work and functioning.

Bearing in mind the restrictions from the Law on Prevention of Corruption, which prevents the Agency to publish a decision determining that the public official did not violate provisions of this Law without its consent, we recommended to the Agency to request for the consent. The Agency should then publish the list of public officials from whom it requested consents and who gave it, and who did not. We believe that this is extremely important in terms of the integrity of the Agency’s employees in charge of the control of assets declaration and the entire Agency, but also the integrity of public officials, especially if it would be subsequently determined that the officer did violated the Law. Also, we believe that there is no reason that any public official would opt to hide a document confirming that his income and assets are lawfully acquired and properly reported.

Other recommendations are aimed at improving the protection of whistleblowers, control of the funding of political entities and strengthening the integrity in the public sector.

Ana Đurnić

Public Policy Researcher

Here you can download Recommendations for improving the work of the Agency for Prevention of Corruption in 2017 and IA Comments on the Proposal of the Work Plan of the Agency for Prevention of Corruption for 2017, in entirety (only in Montenegrin).

We prepared and submitted recommendations and comments within the project “Towards Qualitative Signs of the Anti-corruption Efficacy”, which IA is implementing with the financial support of the Embassy of the Kingdom of Netherlands. The opinions and views expressed in the documents do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the Embassy of the Kingdome of Netherlands.

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Interview: Politics Impede Reform Efforts

The government plans to reduce the number of public sector employees by 5,000 people, by 2020, while the political influence in public administration is unavoidable, as the key institutions – ministries are guided by political figures, said Milena Milošević, public policy researcher at the Institute alternative, in an interview with Daily ”DAN”. She warned that merit-based employment has not been introduced, and that the reform consists only of “cosmetic measures”.

Stance that the public sector is enormous mainly comes from the fact that this sector, according to the latest available data, employs around 56,000 people, said Milošević, stressing that it is fully justified to think that our administration is cumbersome.

However, Institute Alternative often has to replace state authorities in demanding tasks of counting employees in public administration and in the public sector in general. For example, there are no official data on the number of employees in the so-called agencies and public enterprises.

Information on the employees at the local level has been declared confidential, as well. This shows only the extent of the problem, since we do not have reliable baseline data to resolve it – she notes.

She adds that the employment policy in Montenegro is mainly based on the exchange of working positions for a certain benefit, and therefore not based on an analysis of actual needs and scope of work of certain institutions and authorities.

The well known illustration of the problem is the fact that some local cultural centers employed even several dozen employees, more than the entire ministries – she recalls.

On the other hand, despite the obvious enormous size of the public sector, we have a situation where the job positions for 2.000 people more are envisaged by the internal organization acts of our strate administration, Milosevic highlights.

– So, despite the fact that we often hear that our administration is cumbersome, the Government and the Human Resources Management Authority, approved regulations envisaging more jobs than it can fill up – she said. Milosevic added that this practice is not sustainable in the long term.

– The current aim of the Government for the entire public sector is to decrease the number of employees to 2020 by 4,000 to 5,000. This reduction is likely to come under pressure from the public debt, but it remains unclear how it will be implemented – by agreement or termination of employment. Will we once again be deprived of quality staff where we need it – to work on development issues and to implement key reforms – noted Milosevic.

She stressed that public administration reform and adoption of the first strategic document in the field has been firstly pursued in 2003. She believes that time has been wasted, and the implementation of specific measures has been delayed.

– We can also read this from the 2016-2020 Public Administration Reform Strategy, which has “copied” or taken over some measures, which previously failed to realize. Only one activity has been carried out so far. The Law on Administrative Disputes has been adopted, which was rather imposed by the need to harmonize the legal framework with the new Law on Administrative Procedures, but not the Strategy. Also, the formation of the Ministry of Public Administration has resulted in a “delay” of the implementation of certain measures – she said.

Milosevic pointed out that strictly following the deadlines is less important than final implementation of specific goals, without backsliding, especially in politically sensitive areas such as employment and rationalization of public administration.

– These are precisely the most problematic areas, where even the strategy does not envisage particularly ambitious goals. Merit-based employment has not been introduced, and the reforms in this area, so far, consisted only of cosmetic measures. Also, rightsizing of administration is a challenge, and it has implications for overall economic management in the country. However, as Institute Alternative has warned several times in the past few years, instead of the planned reduction, there was an increase in the number of employees in the public sector, especially at the local level. Local governments are, in general, especially neglected. They are not sufficiently involved in the reform. More comprehensive measures are not envisaged in terms of improving human resource management, accountability, the integrity and the public financial management at the local level – she said.

Milosevic says that political interference in public administration cannot be avoided, given that ministries are managed by political figures.

– After a certain level, the political impact should be minimal, which is not the case in Montenegro. On the contrary, positions that should be occupied by professionals, are occupied by individuals who are directly exposed in front of some political parties. This, of course, refers mostly to the ruling DPS (Democratic Party of Socialists), which has a numerous civil servants in managerial positions, within its Council for monitoring of implementation of the electoral program. Other parties as well, feel that, after the conquest of power, they are naturally entitled to . In municipalities, power shifts are also accompanied by the turn-overs of senior manages. This is all indication that the political influence remains pervasive – she noted.

More effective coordination is needed

While commenting recent establishment of the Ministry of Public Administration, Milosevic said that it was too early to assess whether with its formation will bring about substantially new approach in the implementation of public administration reform. For this to happen, it is important that the work of this institution does not solely consist of tasks performed by the former directorates of the Ministry of Interior and Ministry for Information Society and Telecommunications.

A positive development is that it is envisaged for more employees to be tasked with development and coordination of public administration reform both on national and local levels. However, no ministry alone can carry out such a demanding reform. It is therefore important that the coordination of the various institutions is more effective than it has been so far – she noted.

Milosevic recalls that last year Government established a Council for Public Administration Reform.

Montenegro now has a single body to manage this reform, after a long time. However, representatives of the NGO sector are not in the Council, which is also not in favor of a more open approach in the implementation of reforms. This does not comply with key standards of good governance, which are defined by the European Principles Of Public Administration – she noted.

Interview has been republished from the website of Dan Online

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Open Data and Economy

#OpenDataDay

The International Open Data Day is marked for the seventh time today on 4th of March. The idea is to promote the significance and the use of “unlocking“ the data worldwide and the necessity of adopting a politics of openness, not just by the governments and public institutions but also by private sector, civil society, the media and academic community.

Open, sometimes referred to as “unlocked“ data, are data published unprocessed and in a machine readable form. This means that the data can be used by various softwares, searchable and re-used, instead of the practice of retyping data which is overly slow and expensive. In Montenegro, state and local authorities are persistent in delivering documentation either in paper or as a locked PDF file, which makes it impossible to reuse in electronic form.

I do not blame you if you are thinking that we are currently facing bigger issues, but here is some data that can draw your attention. In 2011, Deloitte did en estimate of the British market of information from the public sector which amounted to 1.8 billion pounds – during that single year. Public data in that country are re-used not only to improve the state in the areas of healthcare, education, transport, economy, environment, security and social protection, but also in the for-profit: by creating new content and services based on the data. There are two illustrative examples from practice: publishing of data on cardiac surgeries of adults in Britain resulted in mortality rate decline, which furthermore resulted in an economic value for over 400 million pounds. The use of real-time data for London transport via application saved time for the users, helped them avoid traffic jams and resulted in an economic value between 15 and 58 million pounds.

Perhaps this sounds a bit too advanced for our small country. However, examples from practice show that the use of data merely depends on the ideas and creativity of users, meaning citizens, and its availability provides equal opportunity for everyone to do something. Nevertheless, for the citizens, IT experts and entrepreneurs to be able to come across good data that can prove to be useful or interesting for the community, which would create material or non-material value, a culture of proactive publishing of data has to be nourished. Even though this is primarily an obligation of the state authorities that collect vast amount of data on citizens, it is also an obligation of the business community that “knows“ a lot about us: how much meat and fish Montenegrins eat, how often they visit private dentist offices, how many laptops were bought this year. The academic community can publish which books can be found in university libraries and which ones are most read. By interpreting, combining and refurbishing various public data one can certainly profit, and most certainly issues of public interest can be raised.

Even if this is not a politically sensitive question, the Government failed in this area as well. Despite the fact that the Law on Free Use of Information of Public Authority was in procedure in 2014 and was subjected to two public discussions, it was not adopted neither in the form of a law nor as a part of the Law on Free Access to Information up until today. Given that the European Union recognised the potential of open data and adopted two directives that regulate this area (in 2003 and 2013), we will have to transpose them in the national legislation eventually. However, in order to make a full use of this Law, two criteria has to be met: that all data is published and that there is interest among citizens. Judging upon the experience of implementation of the Law on Free Access to Information from 2006 onwards, we have a long and difficult road ahead in terms of open data.

Dina Bajramspahić
Public Policy Researcher

Open data

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Joint Appeal to the Parliament – Do not appoint Jelić as a member of the SAI Senate

Concerned over the developments related to the status of independent, supervisory institutions in Montenegro, with special emphasis on the state of affairs in the area of budgetary control, we address

AN APPEAL TO THE MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT

not to appoint Zoran Jelić as the member of Senate of State Audit Institution

Zoran Jelić failed to do anything which would make him worthy of permanent position as member of Senate of key supervisory institution in Montenegro. However, he has done much which should have disqualified him from this appointment.

Apart from the fact that his name is synonymous for the “affair Recording” and misuse of public resources for political purposes, we remind that Jelić has violated the law for years by occupying simultaneously the position of MP and state official in the Employment Agency.

Crucial fact which should disqualify him from this appointment should be the negative opinion which State Audit Institution (SAI) issued with regards to work of Employment Agency in the moment when he managed that institution. We remind that during the parliamentary discussion on this report, then MP and director of Employment Agency, Zoran Jelić has debated over the findings of SAI and putting these into question, thereby misusing his position of MP.

The report of SAI on the audit of success, “The efficiency of use of resources of contribution for professional rehabilitation and employment of persons with disabilities”, published in October 2015, noted that resources of particular contribution are not used in an efficient manner, along with the fact the set of established measures was not implemented in order to achieve higher utilization of resources intended for professional rehabilitation and employment of persons with disabilities by the Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare and Employment Agency, which was headed by Jelić during the foundation of Fund for professional rehabilitation and employment of persons with disabilities, from 2009, by the end of October 2012.

Along with all the problems which accompany the work of this institution, during the course of more than 10 years of its operation, SAI was able to fight for the position of an objective and independent institution, which findings are recognised, quoted and used by the representatives of every political party, regardless of their political affiliation.

Reports of SAI are also used by us, the below signed representatives of civil sector, as the unique example of institution in Montenegro which openly reports the misuses and violations of law, in order to strengthen the responsibility concerning the management of taxpayers’ money.

The appointment of Zoran Jelić to Senate of SAI would change the relation of us towards the work of SAI – it would constitute a blow to independence and integrity of supreme audit institution, and to its capacities to monitor the misuse, irrationalities and illegalities in the work of state administration in an objective and independent manner.

We urge the MPs to annul this process by refraining from vote in the plenum. We have been waiting for seven years to see the completion of Senate of SAI, hence the reasons of emergency cannot come before the goal of Senate to have a person who would enjoy public trust without the stains in terms of his/her integrity.

We urge the EU to keep a close eye on this case and publically state its opinion with regards to this appointment.

  • Stevo Muk, President of Managing Board, Institute Alternative (IA)
  • Vanja Ćalović, Executive Director, Network for Affirmation of non-governmental sector (MANS)
  • Ana Novaković, Executive Director, Centre for Development of non-governmental organisations (CRNVO)
  • Daliborka Uljarević, Executive Director, Centre for Civic Education (CCE)
  • Tea Gorjanc Prelević, Executive Director, Human Rights Action (HRA)
  • Marina Vujačić, Executive Director, Association of Youth with Disabilities (UMHCG)
  • Zlatko Vujović, President of Managing Board, Centre for Monitoring and Research (CEMI)
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A Farce in the Parliament

The Committee endorses Jelić and hides the documentation of candidates

After almost seven years of waiting for the appointment of the missing member of the State Audit Institution’s (SAI) Senate, MPs in the Committee for Economy, Finance and Budget have unanimously and without representatives of the opposition, appointed Zoran Jelić for this position.

Institute Alternative has recently appealed to Committee members to disqualify Jelić’s application on several grounds. Recently, we sent a documentation package to the MPs, a necessary reading sent to the MPs documentation that would have been helpful for the Committee members in making proper decision:

Institut Alternativa has requested copies of the received applications from the Parliament, with all the evidence and documentation provided by the candidates. We believe that it is necessary that the procedures for appointment carried out by the Parliament, especially when it comes to permanent positions, to be fully transparent and that the public must be allowed to access all documents necessary for the application of candidates. However, the Parliament has turned to harmfulness test of disclosure of information and refused access to information, arguing that its release “could cause harmful consequences for the work and decision making of the Committee of Economy, Finance and Budget, which are of greater importance than the interests of the public to know.”

The ruling coalition has not made the slightest effort to propose a candidate who would be acceptable to the professional public and without integrity issues, perceived or proven. After they have occupied the Committee, which is traditionally chaired by the opposition (since its key purpose is the control and supervision of the public administration), the ruling coalition has clearly shown us how much it cares for having a strong and powerful SAI.

We see such a decision of the ruling coalition as an intention to stop the reform work of SAI and further reduce its capacity to objectively and independently examine potential abuses, illegalities and other issues in the work of public administration.

Appointment of Zoran Jelić to the Senate of SAI is an attack on the independence and integrity of the supreme audit institution whose task is to protect the budget from exactly those abuses that Jelić has been perpetrating for years.

Stevo Muk
President of the Managing Board

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Opposition Defended the Public Interest, Whereas DPS Gave 3697 M2 to Three Privileged Ngos

We welcome the decision of 19 councillors of the opposition who have requested the dismissal of proposition regarding the ceding of 3697 m2 of urban land for the construction of the so called House of Civil Society from the agenda of yesterday’s session of Parliament of Capital City of Podgorica. This refers to the project of three non-governmental organisations – Civic Alliance (CA), Center for Democratic Transition (CDT) and FAKT.

Councillors from the opposition have unanimously voted for the dismissal of this issue from the agenda due to the lack of conditions to cede the Capital’s property in a legally prescribed manner, in line with clear criteria and procedure which would provide equal opportunities for all NGOs. Councillors from opposition have upheld the dismissal of this issue from the agenda, thus responding to our recently submitted request and demonstrating an accountable approach to public resources management and we welcome this decision.

Nevertheless, the councillors of ruling majority have passed the decision on the ceding of 3697 m2 of land, thus approving the project signed by Milo Đukanović, on behalf of the Government, and Ajša Hadžibegović, Development Director of Civic Alliance, on behalf of Foundation formed by CDT, Civic Alliance and FAKT. So far, there has not been any record of such disposal of state land, nor of such flagrant form of favouring the group of three NGOs, thereby circumventing fair and transparent procedures, or direct state intervention in the development of autonomous NGO sector.

Foundation of three NGOs – Civic Alliance, CDT and FAKT, will acquire 3.697 m2 of urban land under these circumstances, along with the exemption from utilities, which could make the final state investment up to some EUR 950.000.

sums up the value of that land to some EUR 950.000. Agreement to such arrangement of these NGOs sheds shadow to the credibility to hold institutions accountable, but also greatly questions the image of entire NGO sector.

We remind that Government and Capital have been refusing for years to adopt the Decree on the Criteria and Procedure of Ceding Space and State-owned Land to NGOs, violating the Strategy of Development of NGOs, as well as the recommendations of European Commission. Now, we have the proof that the interest of authorities regarding the creation of parallel NGO sector prevails over the public interest in terms of the responsible management of state land and enabling pluralism of functioning of various social actors.

Stevo Muk
President of the Managing Board