Anniversary of Institute Alternative: Our First Decade

We research public policy because public policy affects us

During the ten years of its existence, Institute Alternative realised its ideas through 84 projects with the aim of creating preconditions for better governance, effective expenditure of citizens’ money, better control of executive authority and security services, as well as better parliamentary control. The results of our research are summarized in 84 studies, reports and analyses, and the decision-makers were addressed 1036 recommendations. Over four thousand times we communicated our proposals and recommendation to the media for better quality public policies.

The overall budget since the foundation until this day amounts to ‎1.138.427 euros, out of which the majority of funds are from over 20 international organisations and embassies, while the percentage of the funds obtained from the state of Montenegro is 9,1%, which is overall 104.148,56 euros. In the same period, the Institute paid 192.633,32 euros in taxes, which makes up to 85% of funds more than it got from the state for the realisation of its projects.
The development of our organizational capacity over six years was supported by the Open Society Foundation – Think Tank Fund.

We started three internet pages. My town is a pioneer endeavour of visualisation of budgetary data of local self-administrations. My Administration followed, which serves as an address for all those citizens that have encountered a problem when interacting with public administration and its service delivery system. The newest internet portal, My Money, is a result of the intention to make all that “locked“ and unsearchable data available.
Institute Alternative provided suggestions and comments to 12 strategic documents and 24 national and local legislative acts, and we also participated in 25 working groups for the development of legal and strategic documents, as well as for the chapters within the negotiation process with the European Union. Our researchers actively participated 14 times in the work of parliamentary bodies, during discussion on draft laws, as well as during control and consultative hearings.

Our flagship activity is our Public Policy School, designed to improve the capacity and knowledge of decision-makers. For six generations, Institute Alternative trained 114 participants, which came from public administration, local self-administration, NGOs, unions, media, student and academic community.

We cooperate actively with over 40 organisations within regional networks in the Western Balkans and with over 100 organisations in Montenegro.

Institute Alternative regularly publishes information on its finances, projects and donors who have supported its work. Due to this, Institute obtained five stars for transparency from three years in a row from the international non-for-profit organisation Transparify that grades the transparency of over 200 research centres.

Our organisation consists of a 10-member team, but over the years the Institute cooperated with 46 people, to whom we are grateful for their time, dedication and the knowledge that they selflessly offered to the organisation.

Presenting the results of the public opinion survey “What do citizens think about the police – In the service of citizens or someone else?”

The Institute Alternative and the regional network of CSOs POINTPULSE are organizing a presentation of the results of the survey “What do citizens think about the police – in the service of citizens or someone else?”, which will be held at the PR Center on September 14, 2017, starting at 11:00.

The focus of the research is on the following topics:

  • To what extent do citizens trust the police?
  • How do citizens perceive an average police officer?
  • According to citizens’ opinion, to what extent is corruption present in the police and how to fight it?
  • According to citizens’ opinion, to what extent does politics influence the police?

The research will be presented by Milena Milošević, public policy researcher at the Institute Alternative, while Dina Bajramspahić, also public policy researcher at the Institute Alternative, will be the moderator.

Presentations on the same topic will be organized simultaneously in Belgrade, Tirana, Sarajevo, Pristina and Skopje, where research results will be presented by the project partners: Belgrade Center for Security Policy, Institute for Democracy and Mediation, Center for Security Studies, Kosovo Center for Security Studies and Analitika.

For any additional information, please feel free to contact Ana Đurnić at ana@institut-alternativa.org or phone number 020 268 686.

The Capital City one of the leaders in poor public procurement planning

The Capital City has been one of the leaders in poor public procurement planning for years, as it mostly copies the same plan year after year, retaining the same planned sum of about four million euros, although it has not spent that amount in any of the past years.

Irrational planning, frequent amendments and non-realization of plans are some of the central problems in the public procurement system. In 2016, large differences were observed in the planned and spent budget for public procurement for certain categories of contracting authorities, whereas the data on the total difference between planned and spent money for public procurement at the level of all contracting authorities is not publicly available, hence it is impossible to gain insight in the scope of the problem of poor public procurement planning in Montenegro.
In 2016, municipalities planned to spend a total of 55.871.205,00 € for public procurement, but they spent less than half the sum – 24.965.671,06 €. Such inadequate planning of public procurement indicates poor budget coordination and inefficient management of public finances, bearing in mind that the planned funds “are reserved” for certain procurements that do not get realized and thus remain unspent at the end of the budget year, although they could have been used for other purposes.

Public procurements are implemented according to the annual public procurement plans. Therefore, procurement authorities are obliged to prepare a public procurement plan for that year by 31 January and then procure accordingly. Also, they have the possibility to amend the plan without limitations – number of possible amendments is not legally limited, so the number of amendments adopted during year is high.

From 2015 onwards, the Capital City Podgorica has been among the leaders in view to the number of adopted amendments to the public procurement plan. During 2015, this contracting authority amended the public procurement plan for 17 times, in 2016 21 times, while for the first eight months of 2017, public procurement amount has been amended 8 times.

Also, in the previous two years (2015 and 2016), the Capital City has spent approximately 4.5 million euros on public procurement, and according to the latest amendments, it plans to spend about 4 million in 2017. The same amount was allocated by the Public Procurement Plan of the Capital City in 2016. However, in spite of 21 amendments to the plan and the fact that the plan was last amended on 30 November, immediately before the end of the year, the planned 1,281,503.63 € remained unspent.

Again in 2015, The Capital City did not plan better its procurement, 17th amendment to the Public Procurement Plan was adopted on December 15, and the difference between the planned and spent budget for public procurement amounted to almost 2 million €.

Thus, the Capital City does not actually plan its procurements, but mostly copies the same public procurement plan year after year, retaining the same final planned sum – around 4 million €, although it has not spent that amount in any of the past years.
This indicates that this procurement authority, alike many others, does not conduct an analysis of their needs, or a comprehensive market and cost analyses, before approaching the preparation of the annual public procurement plan.

Inadequate planning of public procurement indicates poor budget coordination and inefficient management of public finances, bearing in mind that the planned funds “are reserved” for certain procurements that do not get realized and thus remain unspent at the end of the budget year, although they could have been used for other purposes.

It depends on the well-developed public procurement plan whether the procurement authority will meet its needs on annual or multi-annual level, i.e. to what extent it will rationally use the funds from the budget. Therefore, this plan usually contains, or should contain, the required quantities of certain goods and services, the type of procedure to be used, the time period within which the procurement will be realized.

Ana Đurnić

Public Policy Researcher