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Commentary for the MINA Agency on the Draft Law on Internal Affairs

Commentary on the Draft Law on Internal Affairs for the MINA Agency was given by our Dina Bajramspahić, representative of the IA in the Working Group for the Preparation of the Law on Internal Affairs.

The Law on Internal Affairs has not yet been drafted and the working group is still working on it. Although we worked hard and held over thirty long sessions during two years of our work, there are still many ambiguous solutions. The problem that arises is that we had improved some issues and that discussions are now underway to bring back old solutions. This is particularly relevant in the area of human resources management in the police, which is the most important issue for its overall functioning.

The most important step forward in the law is prescribing that the lowest educational level that a person must have to enter into employment contract with the Police is V degree (Police Academy). We have seen during the previous week that there are problems even with personnel from the Police Academy who have attended an intensive two-year police training program, based on which it is clear how many problems can arise with those with IV degree and three month police training.

However, this solution alone is not enough because the police already has four and a half thousand police officers in service. For these persons in the service, a good system of monitoring work, performance assessment, additional training, merit-based promotion, which still does not exist, must be established. There is resistance both in the Ministry of Interior (MoI) and the Police Directorate towards moving the system from absolute freedom to discretionary decision-making on appointing heads of police units by the management, to building a system that will measure results and reward the best. We have not yet fully elaborated the provisions relating to these issues.

In this regard, it is especially important that the law prescribes an internal call for heads of police units so that all good candidates have the opportunity to apply and show interest in filling up the most responsible positions. This is not only the recommendation of the Institute Alternative, but all five experts who worked with the Working Group. There is also problem with the institute for dismissal of heads of police units which is not adequately regulated nor linked to the performance measurement and dismissal criteria, so every head of unit can be dismissed at any time. On the other hand, since there is no criteria, the lack of these provisions also allows those who are not worthy to be heads of police units. An example is the announcement of the return of Lješković to the position of the Head of the Special Anti-Terrorist Unit.

Although they have been implemented so far, for the first time security checks of police officers are legally prescribed. So far, they have been implemented only in the case of persons entering employment contract for the first time. However, they should also be implemented during the work of police officers because young candidates have not yet had the opportunity to make such serious mistakes as those who are already working in the police. I hope these provisions will not be deleted and that the MoI and the Police will show that they consider it important that those who are not worthy of the police badge do not remain in service.

We have also criticized the intent to abolish the MoI Disciplinary Commission and transfer responsibility to the Disciplinary Commission in charge of tens of thousands of state and local civil servants. The current version of the law has not significantly improved the supervision over the police, which is completely ineffective in practice. I hope that the Working Group will not give up the intention to separate job positions from titles in the Police and that the possibility of establishing fixed-term employment will be completely erased, which is also explicitly recommended by the experts.

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Weak Results in the Implementation of Public Procurement

Public procurement system in Montenegro went through significant legal changes whereby new amendments do not contribute to the transparency, accountability and efficiency of this system, said Ana Đurnić at the conference “Challenges of Public Administration Reform in Montenegro”.

The conference was organized by SIGMA – a joint initiative of the European Commission and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in co-operation with the Ministry of Public Administration in Podgorica.

“Even the process of preparation and adoption of legal solutions in this area is not always transparent, and the latest amendments to the Law on Public Procurement were adopted behind closed doors, without a public discussion or consultation with the European Commission.”

Đurnić reminded that the Strategy for the Development of Public Procurement System was adopted in the same way three years ago.

“Amendments to the Law on Public Procurement adopted in June 2017 introduced procedures that reduce the transparency of this part of public spending. The least transparent and least competitive procedure – direct agreement, was deleted from the Law on Public Procurement, but an adequate substitution was found, which is now called low value procurement, she added.

It is worth noting that most ministries and municipalities have not foreseen in their internal acts regulating low value procurement the obligation of publishing concluded contracts. This has been done only by the Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Economy and Ministry of Sustainable Development and Tourism, and the Capital City of Podgorica is the only municipality which has done it.

She concluded that instead of going towards greater transparency and competitiveness of this part of public procurement, legal solutions go in opposite direction.

In this regard, Đurnić presented data earlier analized by the Institute Alternative, showing that:

  • The average number of bidders per tender is steadily decreasing: from 4.34 in 2011 to 2 in 2017, according to preliminary analysis of the Public Procurement Administration;
  • In 2016, 52 companies received over a half of the public procurement budget in that year (almost 250 million euros);
  • During 2016, the Public Procurement Administration received only 2 reports on suspicious for corruption,
  • Public procurement continues to be high on the list of areas particularly prone to corruption, and 59% of citizens believe that corruption is present in this area.

The conference was held in order to present findings of the second comprehensive monitoring report on implementation of the European Principles of Public Administration in Montenegro. I

n its report, SIGMA recommended, inter alia, to reduce the number of contracting authorities through centralization of public procurement, and reiterated the importance of establishing an electronic public procurement system.

In the coming period, through the project “Money Watch – Civil Society Guarding the Budget”, implemented with the support of the European Union in cooperation with the Institute for Public Finance from Zagreb and the NGO “New Horizon” from Ulcinj, Institute Alternative will conduct an independent monitoring of the Public Finance Management Reform Program for the period 2016-2020, the important part of which is the public procurement system.

Independent monitoring of the important strategic document for public finance reform through this project will be complementary to the monitoring of this area conducted by other important actors – primarily the Government and the European Commission. Institute Alternative Team

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The Director of the Agency for the Prevention of Corruption does not do performance appraisals

Contrary to the Law on Civil Servants and State Employees, the Agency does not do appraisals of its employees’ performance since the establishment of this institution.

ALTERNATIVA_5-1024x682Therefore, rights of employees are violated by leaving it up to director to arbitrarily decide on their promotion or demotion, without basing it objectively in the performance appraisals.

Contrary to the Law on Civil Servants and State Employees, the Agency for the Prevention of Corruption did not do performance appraisal of its employees in 2016 and 2017.

This year, further to the request for free access to information, the Institute Alternative received Agency’s response that it is not in possession of appraisals of its employees’ work, while last year they provided a more detailed explanation for failure to do appraisals.

“The Agency for Prevention of Corruption is an autonomous and independent body established by the Parliament of Montenegro. Employees of the Agency are subject to the regulations on civil servants and employees solely in terms of rights, obligations and responsibilities which does not include performance appraisals. Accordingly, performance appraisal of employees in the Agency for the Prevention of Corruption is not done,” reads the last year’s decision on the request for free access to information of the Institute Alternative.

This is problematic due to the fact that employees in the Agency for the Prevention of Corruption are also civil servants and state employees, whose salaries are paid out of the state budget. In addition, the Law on Prevention of Corruption explicitly stipulates that regulations on civil servants and state employees apply to rights, obligations and responsibilities of employees in the Agency.

Appropriate application of the rights, obligations and responsibilities from the Law on civil servants and state employees undoubtedly includes employees’ performance appraisals. This Law stipulates that performance appraisals of civil servants and state employees is done for the purpose of monitoring their work and making proper decisions on their career development in service.

Hence, performance appraisal of civil servants and state employees is the basis for exercising their right to promotion in service, or demotion if they received negative appraisal. Therefore, the right of Agency’s employees to merit based career development in service is in this way violated and left to the discretionary decision of the director of the Agency, reached not on the basis of work merits, but according to his personal consideration.

This is particularly problematic given the fact that it considers civil servants of the institution under the public eye over the last two years, and especially over the last few months. On several occasions, domestic and international public expressed doubt about the efficient operation of this institution and therefore its management and employees. According to the Law on civil servants and state employees, performance appraisals of employees is done once a year, at the latest by the 31st of January of the current year for the previous year. Performance appraisal of a civil servant or state employee is made by the decision of a head of state authority at the proposal of immediate manager. Performance appraisal criteria are: achieved performance results, independence and creativity in performing tasks, quality of cooperation established with parties and associates at work, quality of work organization in performing the tasks, other competencies, skills and quality in performing the tasks.

Ana Đurnić
Public Policy Researcher

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Unassigned Police Officers in Montenegro

The Montenegrin Police Directorate’s data shows that there are 179 unassigned police officers.

But, according to data from the Institute Alternative, a think-tank from Montenegro, the number is higher, close to 300.

Unassigned Police Officers in Montenegro

A police officer in Montenegro does not have to work but can still receive a monthly paycheck—if he or she is unassigned. The reasons for this can be different: vanity, revanchism, not agreeing to follow meaningless demands from the managers without questions asked, ”going off the correct political course”, and sometimes for working strictly by the rules and procedures.

Some of the unassigned officers that ended up in police service “accidentally”. Some of them are those not held in high esteem by powers that be, no matter how useful their work is to the police. Also, for some unassigned officers, it is unclear if they are police officers or criminals, because they sometimes get high positions within the police or are sent to “vacation” as fast as possible. Those unassigned return to work when someone close to them becomes a police manager.

All of this was told by police employees who are or have been in similar situation to daily “Vijesti”. Competent and useful, useless and incompetent, honest and criminals, all of them are receiving paychecks waiting for the new schedule.

The average salary for the most of unassigned police officers in Montenegro is 462€. Twelve unassigned police managers receive 710€ per month. This costs taxpayers from 130.000 to around 200.000€ monthly, depending if you trust data from the Police Directorate or Institute Alternative.

“There is no proposal from Police Directorate’s managers for assignment of 129 out of 179 unassigned officers. The right solution will be found for police scheduling while taking into account their experience and positions that would suit their education. We are also waiting for the new Law on Internal Affairs which should separate position from vocation”, explained the representative from the Ministry of Interior for “Vijesti”.

The rest are not coming to work because of sick leave or for being suspended.

The representatives of the Ministry of Interior explained the rights and obligations of those unassigned police officers. Namely, these are based on the last valid scheduling decisions which are applicable for the officers until they receive a new decision that is aligned with conditions from current regulations.

dina

“The publication of official data on unassigned police officers in the Ministry of Interior and Police Directorate started in 2013, and the State Audit Institution confirmed this in 2015. But, until now, nothing has been done to solve the issue. According to data from Institute Alternative, there are now almost 300 unassigned officers in the police”, said public policy researcher at Institute Alternative Dina Bajramspahić to Vijesti.

Bajramspahić explained that the Law on Civil Servants stipulates that every state authority employee needs to have a decision on the appointment to a specific position inside that institution. There is no deadline for determining the position, she said, or procedures if the position is never assigned to the civil servant.

“It is one of those situations that are not legally regulated in comparative practice because no one else even had in mind that such a situation could ever exist”, Bajramspahić emphasized.

This practice became especially widespread in the police as a consequence of several reasons that are related to the economic and social situation in the country, Bajramspahić added.

“A number of employees were admitted to the police even though they did not meet the prescribed conditions. Therefore, they cannot be linked with the approved positions in the rules regulating internal organization and systematization of workplaces. The second group of employees consists of officers that made a significant omission, or have been otherwise discredited, but have not been prosecuted disciplinary or criminally, and have not been officially terminated. Informally, that means that they are “removed” from the service, but continue to receive a monthly payment, so as not to be left without income. A smaller number are those officers who were “disobedient” since the managers have not decided where to schedule them. Lastly, there is a problem with former managers with high-level police ranks, since there is not a high enough number of appropriate posts to be filled by these high-ranking officers. Colloquially, it means that they have a high police rank thanks to which they are not being degraded to lower positions”, claims Bajramspahić.

Police director Slavko Stojanović declined to speak about this.

Stojanović sent a short commentary:

“Assignment of police officers and other changes regarding human resources will be carried out according to service demands and after acquiring necessary conditions for assignment to proper job position as stated by the Rulebook on the internal organization and systematization”.

Policewomen expressly moved because she did not know who Enis Baković was

Police officers are often moved from one position to another without a good reason and explanation. There are bizarre cases, as one that happened last September.

According to unofficial findings by “Vijesti”, a police officer that was securing the prosecution building in Podgorica was moved to another position because she asked a person who wanted to see the special prosecutor Milivoje Katnić to introduce themselves.

The man who casually wore a green “body shirt” did not present an ID, which is required for entering any government institution. It turned out that the police officer did not recognize the chief of criminal police Enis Baković, who was appointed nine months earlier.

“Vijesti” correspondents said that Baković was very offended that he was not recognized. He immediately requested from the Chief of Department responsible for the security of objects, Dragan Blagojević, to punish police officer by reassignment, which he did the same day.

“Vijesti”, without any success, tried asking Baković and Blagojević what is the protocol that demands that an officer knows what every police director looks like.

Baković did not respond as to why he did not identify himself when entering the prosecution building for the purpose of recording the time and date of his visit, according to rules that apply to everybody. Blagojević did not respond with a reason that explains why the police officer was relocated or did the officer get the information verbally only, which “Vijesti” found out was the case.

A BURDEN TO CITIZENS AND COLLEAGUES

As a rule, unassigned officers do not work. Only some of them come to work hoping their status will be solved.

“I think it’s especially important to emphasize that unassigned officers are not only a burden to citizens, who pay their salaries through taxes but to colleagues who actually work for the same pay too, taking on extra workload. Paradoxically, the number of police officers in Montenegro is multiple times over the necessary number respective of its population size, but at the same time it is lacking qualified cadres because of the overstressed social reasons”, said Bajramspahić.

She claims that police is not going to achieve the expected quality of work until their priority becomes hiring those with special skills and knowledge needed for doing police work.

“According to our research, 51 percent of citizens think that it’s impossible to get hired by the police without a connection through family and friends, while 44 percent think political connections are necessary”, Bajramspahić pointed out.

The analysis was originally published on internet portal Vijesti.
Translation: Olga Boškov (BCSP)

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Press Release: Administration of the Capital City Does Not Know How Much It Pays for Lost Disputes

The Capital City rejected the Institute Alternative’s request for information regarding the number and value of ongoing court cases against the local government body, since the information as such does not exist.

Institute Alternative requested from the Property Directorate of the Capital City to provide us with information on the value of the ongoing disputes in which the Capital City is one of the parties, as well as the number of ongoing court cases against the Capital City. We have not received any of the requested information, because, as they informed us, it is not readily available, i.e. the directorate would have to process the documents anew for the purposes of our request.

This practically means that the Capital City does not keep records of the millions spent annually on lost disputes. This is especially problematic as civil servants representing Podgorica and city budget in court disputes do not have records on the basis of which data on ongoing disputes, numbers and value of fines paid by citizens due to someone’s mistakes would be clear.

The lack of records is particularly concerning given that by the end of 2015, the value of disputes brought against the Capital City, in which the absolute statute of limitations of legal remedy expired, amounted to over 5 million euros, according to the audit report of the final budget account of the City for 2015. Hence, someone in the administration of the Capital City is responsible for not appealing in due time, which could have reduced the amount eventually paid by the citizens. We have not received information about the value of disputes in which the absolute statute of limitations of the legal remedy expired at the end of 2017.

These and similar information are nowhere to be found. A separate report on the work of the Property Directorate does not exist, but several lines on the work of this unit are available in the mayor’s report, from which nothing can be discerned about these disputes.

Given that there is no record, it is not possible to make an analysis of the Directorate’s efficiency and disputes against the Capital City.

While conducting research, Institute Alternative so far received records from other municipalities, which, although often terse and reduced to simple tables, at least show how much money a certain local self-government lost.

We noted a similar problem at the central level in the work of the Protector of Property and Legal Interests. In the analysis “Public finances and accountability of administration: What does the Protector protect?” we noted that establishment of high quality records is a precondition for accountability in acting on charges against the public authority bodies.

Institute Alternative is implementing the research, which will cover acting of several local self-governments in this regard, within the framework of the project “Civil Society for Good Governance: To Act and Account!“, with support of the European Union and the Balkan Trust for Democracy, together with non-governmental organizations Bonum, New Horizon, Natura and Center for Investigative Journalism of Montenegro.

Aleksandra Vavić
Public Policy Researcher

 Note:
In its response, the Capital City explained that the value of five million for disputes in which absolute statute of limitation expired, actually refers to plaintiffs’ claims. Institute Alternative noted its omission following the reaction.

Response to the request for free access to information stating that the Property Directorate does not have the information, to which we refer in the text, is available here.
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“Our Administration” Network: 16 Organizations on a Mission to Advance Good Governance

“Our Administration” network counts three more members: Women’s Safe House, Lucha Institute and Ul-info. With them, we are expanding our expertise and bringing in fresh energy that will provide us new topics and research perspectives.

Goals of the network “Our Administration” are to participate in independent monitoring of public administration reform and further strengthen civil society in Montenegro to participate in the reform process.    
Members of our network are non-governmental organizations working with issues of accountability, transparency, efficiency of public administration, service delivery, or, in the broader sense, areas of good governance and public administration reform.

Partners will soon have the opportunity to attend a workshop on monitoring public administration reform as well as attend network meetings to consider further joint initiatives and activities.
“Our Administration” network was created within the framework of the project “Civil Society for Good Governance: To Act and Account” funded by the European Union within the Civil Society Facility and the Balkan Trust for Democracy (BTD) project, the German Marshal Fund (GMF) project, and is implemented by the Institute Alternative, Bonum, Natura, New Horizon and the Centre for Investigative Journalism.

Institute Alternative Team