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Press release: Budgetary Inspection Needs to Become Functional Urgently

We submitted an initiative to the Ministry of Finance to urgently start the process of filling three vacant positions in the Department for Budgetary Inspection, including the position of the Chief budgetary inspector, as well as to make the work of this body more transparent.

In the wake of adoption of the Fiscal Strategy which stipulates numerous measures aimed at reducing public spending, we recall that the key mechanism for ensuring efficient and lawful spending of citizens’ money – budgetary inspection, has been dysfunctional for over three years.

Position of the Chief budgetary inspector has been vacant for more than six months, and the two remaining positions for inspectors were never occupied – since the adoption of the Rulebook on internal Organisation and Systematisation of the Ministry of Finance until today.

From the adoption of the Law on Budget and Fiscal Accountability in 2014 until today, budgetary inspector did not initiate a single misdemeanour charge.

On the other hand, the public did not have any information on his work, since the Ministry of Finance classified all the documentation regarding the operations of budgetary inspection as Internal. Even though the Administrative Court annulled this decision in September 2016 following IA’s lawsuit, Ministry of Finance never submitted the requested information – minutes on conducted inspection controls by the budgetary inspector are still not available to public.

Besides the systemic Law on Budget, budgetary inspector is also in charge of overseeing the implementation of the Law on Wages in the Public Sector. Notwithstanding the two systemic laws and the entire public sector in the broadest sense under aegis of this inspection, all three systematised positions are currently vacant, while the information on previous inspector’s work remains classified.

Anticipating the adoption of the Fiscal Strategy, in order to ensure compliance with the Law on Budget and Fiscal Responsibility and its misdemeanour provisions, we call upon the Ministry of Finance to urgently begin the procedure of filling vacant positions in the budgetary inspection. Measures aimed at reducing current and discretionary spending could be implemented only if there is effective and powerful oversight of the Ministry of Finance embodied in the budgetary inspection.

Therefore, strengthening this inspection’s capacities and introducing the mandatory transparency of its work should be number one priority of the Ministry of Finance. Urgent steps should be: appointment of the budgetary inspector, systematisation and fulfilment of additional workplaces in the budgetary inspection and introduction of the practice of publishing reports on inspection controls conducted by this body.

Stevo Muk

President of the Managing Board

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Withdraw the Draft Law on Old Royal Capital Cetinje from the procedure

Institut alternativa calls upon the Ministry of Public Administration to withdraw the Draft Law on Old Royal Capital Cetinje from the procedure. The Ministry has suddenly opened the public debate for this law, without prior notice, without a working group, and with no indication about this law in the Government’s program of work for this year.

The solutions proposed in the Draft Law on the Old Royal Capital are anti-systemic, unsustainable and unreasonable, as well as discriminatory against other local self-governments in Montenegro.

We are disappointed that the Ministry of Public Administration copied the draft law almost verbatim from DPS, which has tried to have it adopted by the Parliament in 2013 and 2014.

This will be the third time that DPS is trying to achieve the idea of founding the Old Royal Capital Development Fund, which was last mentioned just before the 2013 local elections. The plan is that this fund uses budget of 1% of the projected value of the current budget of Montenegro for each fiscal year, which for 2017 would be – 8.6 million Euros.

The total budget of the Old Royal Capital Cetinje for 2016 is about 8.8 million Euros, which means that the Government intends to double the budget of this local government. In the financial sense, the Old Royal Capital is already exempt from other municipalities. For example, when it comes to personal income taxes, 12% belongs to all municipalities and 16% to the Old Royal Capital, which is a significant benefit, considering that this revenue is relatively easy to collect.

In spite of the planned 8.6 million Euros for the development fund, the accompanying rationale of the Draft Law on the Old Royal Capital Cetinje says that “no additional financial resources are required for the implementation of this law.”

All of this happens in a situation in which Cetinje is obliged to settle its obligations under a contract on tax debt reprogramming, but according to our findings, has not been paying current obligations for taxes and contributions to the state for several months.

The local government of Cetinje has certainly proven through double adverse opinion of the State Audit Institution that it is not able to manage the budget it currently has, either legally or economically and rationally.

Also, planning a development fund of minimum 8 million Euros occurs in a situation where the state is trying to reduce public spending and fiscal strategy proposes cuts in public expenditures and an increase in tax burden on citizens.

Problems in financing of local self-governments should be addressed at a systemic level, adopting solutions that will help all municipalities.

The working group of the Ministry of Finance is currently working on amendments to the Law on Local Government Funding, which, among other things, should increase the revenues for all municipalities, with greater oversight and transparency.

In this context, the move by the Ministry of Public Administration is anti-systemic and obviously based on short-sighted party interests. It is also revealing a devastatingly significant impact on the Ministry by the current administration of the Old Royal Capital Cetinje and DPS.

In order for the Old Royal Capital to have the status it deserves with its historical significance, it is not the development fund that will help, but the abandonment of abuses of existing revenues by ruling parties, as well as legal, rational and effective spending, in the service of its citizens.

Stevo Muk
President of the Managing board

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Protest over the unjustifiably shortened public debate on the Draft Law on Amendments to the Law on Social and Child Protection

Dear Prime Minister, Mr. Marković,

We protest against the decision of Minister of Labor and Social Welfare, Mr. Kemal Purišić, for having drastically shortened the public debate on the Draft Law on Amendments to the Law on Social and Child Protection, despite the appeal of 14 non-governmental organizations. We believe that his actions are contrary to the law and reflect the formal approach to public debate, without the real wish to consult NGOs.

The Public Debate on the Draft law was launched on Friday, June 2, and ended only five days later, on Wednesday, June 7th. Government session was planned for the next day. It already foresaw the Law on Amendments to the Law on Social and Child Protection (point 2 of the agenda), which indicates that it was pre-calculated that any public discussion result would not affect the change of the Draft law made by the Ministry.

Within five days of the so-called “public debate”, only three of them were working days. Thus, it was not possible to get informed that the discussion had begun, nor to analyze all the proposed amendments to the law and make reasoned proposals, despite the desire to give an appropriate contribution. Moreover, during public debate’s round table, Minister Purišić said that there was even basis in the regulations not to conduct debate at all.

By contrary:

A) Article 97 of the Law on State Administration states that “for drafting laws that regulate the rights, obligations and legal interests of citizens, the Minister is obliged to publish the text of the draft law through the media and prepare an invitation for interested parties to make their remarks and suggestions”.

B) Article 9 of the Decree on the procedure and manner of holding a public debate states that public discussion on the text of the law should last at least 40 days.

Public debate can not be conducted only when it comes to the areas of defense, security, annual budget, emergency, urgent or unforeseen circumstances, and when a matter is not differently regulated by law (Article 4 of the Decree). This situation, where substantive changes to the Law on Social and Child Protection are made, does not fall under the above-mentioned criteria.

Unfortunately, despite many requests, representatives of the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare did not respond to our question about basis of the claim that this public debate had not even had to be held. Allegedly, the goal of urgent changes of the Law is the enforcement of the Decision of Constitutional Court regarding the, so-called, “mothers’ benefits”. However, the deadline for the execution of this decision (submitting the Proposal of the Law to the Assembly -and not its adoption in the Assembly), expires on August 12th. It turns out that the rights of mothers with three or more children are not even regulated by this Draft Law, but by some other, so far unpublished Government’s decision. Also, the representatives of the Ministry did not explain or provide any analysis or report based on which they have made decision to propose those specific amendments to the Law on Social Protection.

Dear Prime Minister, we protest because of the lack of adequate debate, and we demand You to prevent an illegal practice of avoiding public debates on laws governing human rights, especially given the principle commitment of the Government to transparent work and cooperation with non-governmental organizations.

Tea Gorjanc Prelević, Executive Director, Human Rights Action (HRA)

Stevo Muk, President of the Managing Board, Institute Alternative (IA)

Maja Raičević, Executive Director, Center for Women’s Rights

Ivana Vujović, Executive Director, NGO Juventas

Kristina Mihailović, Executive Director, Association Parents

Aleksandar Jerotić, President, NGO Pandora

Slavko Milić, President, Defendology Center Montenegro

Marina Vujačić, Executive Director, UMHCG

Ljiljana Raičević, Executive Director, NGO Safe Women’s House

Goran Macanović, Executive Director, Association of the Blind of Montenegro

Ljupka Kovačević, Coordinator, ANIMA

Miluša Cica Žugić, Director, Association for Help to Psychophysical Disabled Persons Nikšić

Savo Knežević, President, First Association of Parents of Children and Youth with Special Needs

Danijel Kalezić, President of the Board of Directors, LGBTIQ Association KVIR Montenegro

Patricia Pobrić, Director, NGO Our Action

Vladan Golubović, Executive Director, NGO CAZAS

Saša Mijović, Director, NGO 4Life

Dejvid Sejdovic, member of the Board of Directors, Foundation Friendship’s hand

Milenko Vojičić, Executive Director, Association of Pleges Niksić

Biljana Zeković, Executive Director, SOS telephone for women and children victims of violence Podgorica

Ranko Mester, President, NGO Brain

Aida Perović Ivanović, Executive Director, NGO Prima

Velida Hodžić, Executive Director, NGO Ikre Rožaje

Vezira Ćosović, President, NGOs Let’s alleviate the life of children with special needs of Rožaje

Nikoleta Strugar, Executive Director, NGO Zinak

Mirsala Tomić, President, Association for the Development of Civil Society Bijelo Polje

Mirko Pavićević, President, NGO Family, Nikšić

NGO Liberal Order

NVO Heart

NGO Woman Today

NGO Society of Sociologists of Montenegro

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Montenegro at the bottom of open data ranking

With its poor results in the field of transparency of public data and the use of new technologies in the transparency of its administration, Montenegro ranks among the three last countries in Europe as 83rd on the list of 115 countries.

Montenegro has been included in the global measurement of public data openness, Open Data Barometer, for the first time. Montenegro is ranked as 83rd of the 115 countries surveyed, with 15 of possible 100 points in the questionnaire. Only Bosnia and Herzegovina (100th position) has been ranked lower in the region, while Serbia (65), Kosovo (63), Croatia (58), Albania (50) and Macedonia (48) have been ranked better. At the top of the list are United Kingdom, Canada and France, while Swaziland, Myanmar and Yemen are at the bottom.

The Barometer ranks 115 countries on: Readiness for open data initiatives, implementation of open data programmes, impact that open data is having on business, politics and civil society. Through a series of questions, the degree of availability of data in open budget, public procurement, health and education sectors, criminal statistics, etc, have been examined.

Institut alternativa’s experts have conducted research for Montenegro within this year’s Open Data Barometer. Institut has, for years, advocated for the opening of public data in Montenegro, through visualization of budget data at the portals www.mojnovac.me and www.mojgrad.me, concrete initiatives to the state authorities to share their databases with the public, as well as through monitoring of the transposition of the EU directives on the re-use of data to national legislation.

The Parliament of Montenegro has recently adopted amendments to the Law on Free Access to Information, which, among else, regulate re-use of public data. In other words, the obligation of public authorities to produce, publish and deliver information in a machine-readable format was introduced.

The law contains a number of shortcomings, which IA has emphasized during the public debate, and which were not corrected in the final version. These shortcomings are the introduction of strict restrictions on access to information, its use, and the basis for rejecting requests for reuse, the costs of the procedure for re-use of information, etc.

Regardless of the aforementioned shortcomings, it is important that the new provisions are used. Meaning, that citizens and civil society are aware of their right to access data produced by the authorities in the format in which they were created, which is not “locked” and in which data can be used – managed, searched, analysed and compared.

The law introduced the obligation not only to share the data with public, but also to produce new and digitize existing databases, as well as to create an open data portal by May 2018, as the central address for accessing government databases.

In order to improve the results of Montenegro in this global survey, a fundamentally different attitude of the Government towards open data is needed, accompanied by the public pressure on the administration and the intensive use of the right to access public data in open formats.

On the following link you can find a summary of the key findings of global research, as well as the overall results and the methodology. This is the fourth edition of the Open Data Barometer, which is run by the World Wide Web Foundation in 115 countries around the world, an organization founded by Tim Berners Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web.

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Statement for “Vijesti”: Controversial laws travel slowly

These two laws made it to the Parliament, i.e. they are published on the Parliament’s website together with rationale for their adoption. Amendments to the Law on Public Procurement, although adopted at the Government’s session a week before these two, still did not make it to the Parliament, i.e. they are not published at the Parliament’s website”, said Đurnić

Institute alternative (IA) wonders why some laws get to the Parliament faster than the others and stresses that the Proposal to the Law on Amendments to the Law on Public Procurement, although Government adopted it on May 18, has not been yet sent to the Parliament and is not publicly available at the Parliament’s website, with rationale for its adoption.

Public policy researcher at IA, Ana Đurnić, stated for “Vijesti” that the Government adopted Proposal to the Law on Amendments to the Law on Public Procurement at 26th session on May 18, and that at the 27th session, among other things, it adopted Proposal to the Law on Amendments the Law on the Protection of Cultural Property and Proposal to the Law on Amendments to the Criminal Code.

“These two laws made it to the Parliament, i.e. they are published on the Parliament’s website together with rationale for their adoption. Amendments to the Law on Public Procurement, although adopted at the Government’s session a week before these two, still did not make it to the Parliament, i.e. they are not published at the Parliament’s website”, said Đurnić.

This is particularly problematic, she said, because Amendments to the Law on Public Procurement published on the Government’s website “do not contain rationale, so we do not know how the Government justifies adoption of some very controversial solutions”.

“Among other things – increasing the value of procurement for which there is no obligation of launching a public tender (up to 15.000 euro for gods and services and up to 30.000 euro for works), which reduces transparency and public scrutiny, but also suspends the protection of bidders’ rights, since the Commission for the Control of Public Procurement Procedures will not have a role in these procurement, i.e. there will be no possibility of filing a complaint to the Commission for these procedures”, stressed Đurnić.

Recently, Institute alternative publicly warned that “despite many years of the European Commission’s insistence on improving the openness of the public procurement system in Montenegro, the Government is constantly closing it for public, discretionary deciding on procedures for spending more than 400 million euro of citizens’ money annually spent on public procurement”.

Statement originally published on Vijesti website

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Changing the Law on Social and Child Protection: Without opinion of the public under the pretext of urgent procedure

This way of changing the Law on Social and Child Protection in an emergency procedure is contrary to the regulations. As the result, citizens were deprived, without explanation, of the opportunity to amend the act by which they are directly concerned.

Jovana BulatovićDraft Law on Amendments to the Law on Social and Child Protection, prepared by the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare, was at the public debate only six days, instead of at least 40, as foreseen by the Regulation on the procedure and manner of conducting public debate in preparing laws.

This means that citizens directly concerned by the issues of social and child protection, and then also the non-governmental organizations, professional and scientific institutions, the media and others, were deprived the opportunity to influence in a quality way the creation of regulations of the public interest.

Additional reason for dissatisfaction is the explanation of the Ministry that the public debate shall be conducted in a shortened procedure due to the obligation for execution of Decision of the Constitutional Court of Montenegro from 19 April 2017.

However, according to the Decision of the Constitutional Court, the Government has three months from the date of publication of the Decision in the “Official Gazette of Montenegro”, to submit the Draft Law on Enforcement of Decision to the Parliament.Therefore, as a deadline is mid-August, the implementation of public debate in this way has no valid justification.

Moreover, the Government creates a double damage to the quality of legislation. In addition to shortening the public debate and denying the opportunity to citizens to contribute, Government also asks the Parliament to adopt this law under urgent procedure referring to the Rules of Procedure of the Parliament. In other words, for the Government even Parliament should discuss less this law.

To remind, according to the Rules of Procedure of the Parliament, “urgent procedure may be applied for adoption of a law that is to regulate issues and relations resulting from circumstances that could have not been foreseen and whose failure to be adopted could cause adverse effects”.
Drafting the Law on Amendments to the Law on Social and Child Protection was planned to be completed by the end of June according to the Government Work Program for this year. The Ministry and the Government had at least half a year available to carry out consultations and debate.

In addition, the proposed changes do not apply only to so called “compensation for mothers”, but also on other issues not covered by the Decision of the Constitutional Court. It is one more reason not to accept the excuse to circumvent the public debate in the full duration.

Finally, the Report on underwent consultations of interested public to matters governed by law is posted on the Ministry’s website and e-Government portal only after the Institute alternative requested that information, seeing that it was not available to the public even 20 days after the deadline.

Jovana Bulatović
Public policy researcher