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Reaction of Coalition KUM to felling of cypresses in Bar

Local authorities must listen more carefully and responsibly to the voice of citizens

The Coalition for Transparency and Fight against Corruption at the Local Level (KUM) assesses that the felling of cypresses in Bar represents an example of non-functionality of local democracy which should be based on direct approach and transparency.

Unfortunately, institutes such as public discussions, consultative referendum, petitions, local community organisations, assembly of citizens, and similar, exist only as legal possibilities, but do not prevail in practice. Consequences can be seen also in this decision which is contrary to the expressed position of citizens of Bar.

Autor: Dado Pavlović

It is concerning that local parliament in Bar has overpassed the appeal of citizens to prevent the urban violence. And the local level of government should precisely be the one to have the special sensibility for their needs and initiatives. It was shown also that the position of authorities is opposed even to current mechanisms for protection of rights and freedoms, since not even the decision of authorised court instance – Administrative Court, was not waited on.

Coalition KUM points out the damage caused by the practices of executive and legislative powers, either on local or state level, which are ignoring their own obligation to inform the citizens with their plans alongside all possible consequences. Additionally, the formality of the proceedings, such as referring to stance that decision of one state body does not postpone execution of solution, or that formal procedures were complied with, does not in itself mean that this authority serves the public interest. The case of felling of cypresses in Bar, i.e. neglecting the strong and justified civic initiative, is an illustrative example of lack of clarity and dysfunctionality of civic initiatives and alienation of authorities.

Indeed, this issue has opened serious dilemma in regards of how to exercise two indisputably public interests but to the detriment of neither one of these interests – the necessity to build kindergarten and to preserve the park which had over 80 cypresses. Hence, it is natural and legitimate thing for citizens to opt about this directly themselves, for example, via referendum.

The Coalition KUM invites the authorised bodies, and primarily the Municipal Assembly of Bar, to acknowledge the new civic initiative for reconstruction of the park and to change the location of kindergarten’s construction, in order to at least partially mitigate the caused damage and to achieve the public interest. Only an effective involvement of citizens in local decision-making processes contributes to stability of that community and opens up opportunities for its progress.

The Coalition for Transparency and Fight against Corruption at the Local Level (KUM) consists of 18 CSOs as follows: Centre for Civic Education (CCE), Centre for Monitoring and Research (CeMI), UL-Info from Ulcinj, Institute Alternative (IA), Za Druga from Petrovac, Centre for Development of Non-Governmental Organisations (CDNGO), Juventas, Bonum from Pljevlja, Active Zone from Cetinje, Democratic Centre of Bijelo Polje, Centre for Investigative Journalism of Montenegro (CIJ MNE), Union of Doctors of Medicine of Montenegro, Centre for Security, Sociological and Criminological Research “Defendology” from Niksic, Monitoring Group Ulcinj – MogUL, Centre for Political Education from Niksic, NGO Da zazivi selo from Pljevlja, Monitor’s Centre for Democracy and Media (MCDM) and Association Dr Martin Schneider-Jacoby from Ulcinj.

The Coalition was formed within the framework of the project “Let’s Put Corruption into Museum!” implemented by the CCE in cooperation with partners and with the support of the EU Delegation to Montenegro and the Ministry of Public Administration of the Government of Montenegro. The views expressed in this announcement are the sole responsibility of the Coalition KUM and do not necessarily reflect the views of the EU and the Ministry of Public Administration.

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Ten proposals for better Law on Electronic Government

During the public debate, the Institute Alternative submitted written comments, suggestions and proposals to the Ministry of Public Administration, with the aim of improving the Draft Law on Electronic Government.

The Draft Law’s key problems are failures to specify certain provisions and to impose appropriate sanctions, imprecise formulations and inconsistencies, which can limit the positive effect of new solutions.

There must be an obligation of authorities to update the electronic services data in timely manner and align the description of the provision of those services with the new Administrative Procedure Act. In this regard, it is necessary to prescribe deadlines for updating data on individual electronic services as well as to introduce sanctions for incorrect or incomplete information on electronic services.

Furthermore, we suggested that the principle on discrimination prevention needs to be further elaborated and accompanied by the adequate sanction for disrespect of this principle.

The Draft Law does not prescribe the obligation of local administration bodies to exchange data through a unified electronic data exchange system. This solution threatens the efficiency of providing all services that include contact and exchange of data with local administration bodies, so we think that these bodies should have the same obligation as state administration bodies.

It is necessary to specify the provision which leaves the possibility for state authorities to ‘whenever the character of their work permits them’, they are free of obligation to exchange data from electronic registers and information systems through a single electronic data exchange system.

In order to provide better efficiency in service provision for the citizens, we propose setting a deadline within which two bodies must exchange data through a single electronic data exchange system.

We paid special attention to the planned meta-register, which, according to this Draft, includes only electronic registers but not all registers owned by the obligors of the Law. We have similar remarks to the decision to establish a catalogue of electronic services, but not a catalogue of all administrative services. Therefore, it is impossible to assess which services can be re-designed into an electronic format and we remain without a baseline situation, which can provide a better insight into potential directions of improving public services.

We also proposed erasing a provision, which predicts the establishment of the Council for Electronic Administration; if this body is still retained, we suggest that it includes representatives of the NGO sector.

Special problem is the unclear jurisdiction over the Law enforcement. Regarding this, the proposal of the Institute Alternative is to distinctly distinguish the responsibilities of the Administrative Inspectorate and the competencies of the inspectors for information society services in such a way that the supervision over the submission of data on electronic registers and information systems to the competent authority and on other (technical) issues will be carried out by an information society inspector, while supervision of the exchange of data will be carried out ex officio by the Administrative Inspectorate.

Additionally, we consider that the deadline of 60 days for the submission of data on new registers or information systems is not proportionate to the scope of the work that this information exchange implies, and needs to be shortened.

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Government abolished Public Procurement Administration, without explanation

By repealing body for public procurement, the Government is skipping the steps in process of regulation of public procurement; it is undermining public debate on the new law, the opinion of the European Commission and the public’s right to know, contrary to the demands of European integration.

The Government’s new Decree on the organisation and manner of work of state administration abolished the Public Procurement Administration. Its tasks were delegated to the Ministry of Finance, without explanation.

In the 2019 Law on Budget, there is only a new budget program “management of public procurement system” under the Ministry of Finance, worth over 358 thousand euros. The Public Procurement Administration does not exist as a specific consumer unit.

As a general explanation for the decision to abolish certain bodies (including the Public Procurement Administration), Ministry of Public Administration stated that it was guided by “rationalisation needs with consideration of legally established criteria, due to the nature of work or small-scale load.” No further explanation was given why the formerly independent state body has been integrated  within the Ministry, while the majority of the former bodies within the ministries has been reorganised into independent administrative bodies.

However, given the recently adopted 2019 Law on Budget and job descriptions and competency of the Ministry of Finance, as they are described in the new Decree, the competent program within the Ministry will have neither less nor more job, responsibilities and competences than the Public Procurement Administration had, nor less employees, nor will consume less money.

According to the Decree , the description of the work that Ministry of Finance does in relation to public procurement corresponds to the previously described activities of the Public Procurement Administration. Also, the estimated budget of the Ministry of Finance for the public procurement program is 23 thousand euro higher than the budget of the Public Procurement Administration in the previous year. The budget for salaries is not reduced – on the contrary, it is also higher for 5,000 euro.

The total salary budget of the Ministry of Finance, compared to the 2018, has decreased only for the amount taken away from previous budget programs of administrations for games of chances and real estate, which are now independent consumer units. Therefore, even in this area, there are no budget savings.

The abolition of the Public Procurement Administration, therefore, will have no implications on expenditure cuts and “cheaper” public administration, nor on the optimisation process. In the Ministry of Finance, the same number of people will continue to work on public procurement tasks and the cost of their salaries will even increase.

Not only that it did not justify the abolition of the body, but the Government has not yet finalised the Proposal for the new Public Procurement Law and submitted it to the Parliament, although it was supposed to finalised it during the last year.

Draft Law on Public Procurement, which was the subject of a public debate in March and sent to the European Commission for the opinion in September, envisaged Public Procurement Administration as an independent body. Therefore, in order to be aligned with the Decree, the proposal of the new law will have to be extensively revised before submission to the Parliament.

In the past two years, the Government failed to demonstrate a clear strategy for regulating public procurement, although this is an area particularly prone to corruption. A few seemingly random and unexplained activities, such as amendments to the Law on Public Procurement in June 2017, without public debate and opinion of the European Commission, the delays in preparation of the new Law and skipping steps in the preparation process, call into question the Government’s commitment to seriously improve the area in which half a billion euro of citizens’ money is spent each year.

The Government is therefore obliged to publicly explain decisions made in the previous period and to state whether this had the approval from the European Commission. Also, when the new Public Procurement Law enters parliamentary procedure, the MPs are responsible to ask the Government why it has opted for a solution different from the one that was subject of the public debate and which was sent to the European Commission for an opinion.

With the abolition of the Public Procurement Administration, Montenegro became the only country in the region without an independent state body to monitor public procurement.

Ana Đurnić
Public Policy Researcher

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Stevo Muk for DN Vijesti: Deserter Strikes Back at DPS for the First Time

The case of Duško Knežević could get a different epilogue from previous, similar affairs, which only gather spider webs and dust in the drawers of judicial bodies, if it turns out that there are forces in the DPS that can and want to use this affair to achieve their own political ambitions, said Stevo Muk, president of the Managing Board of Institute Alternative (IA).

It is paradoxical, says Muk, that the opposition, NGOs and media are demanding that Montenegrin judiciary brings to justice those who are responsible for this and other cases, while at the same time they claim that these institutions are captured. Numerous unsolved affairs involving high level government officials, at the beginning of Duško Knežević’s case, opened a million dollar question – will everything end up as in the affairs – cigarette smuggling, ”S.C.”, “Telekom”, “Audio Recordings Affair”, “Limenka”… Or will the case of Knežević get a different epilogue.

The only affair that can be considered as closed, and ended in political and judicial fining was “Zavala” and a number of cases in Budva.

Although the convicted head of a criminal group is free and currently in Belgrade, the fact is that with the elimination of Svetozar Marović, Milo Đukanović lost the most serious competitor in the party. On the other hand, the DPS was punished by the loss on the elections in Budva, although only two election cycles ago it had the support of over two-thirds of voters in that city.

Muk reminds that now, this is the first time that a tycoon of such rank, recently very close to Đukanović and DPS, firstly is subject of “persecution” by official institutions, and then personally and publicly strikes back by making serious accusations with obvious evidences. “Of course, no one knows what Knežević still has and wants to offer to the public. It is possible that there are other important cases of misuses in his archive” Muk says.

He says that the further judicial process primarily depends on the state’s special prosecutor’s office, whatever Knežević offers.

“If Knežević is ready to testify and offer evidence for his claims, we need to have a Special Prosecutor’s Office on the other side, which is ready to protect the witness and to conduct the proceedings credibly. I expect that the prosecution will try to calm the public by opening a investigation in this case, and it is known how long it takes for the investigations on the cases leading to the top of the DPS to be conducted and what is their epilogue,” Muk says.

It is not necessary to go further than Croatia, to see how the political elite and the public of the country, which has gone through several cycles of changing of governments, react to major scandals. Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković quickly distanced himself from tycoons Ivica Todorić and Agrokor and informed the public almost daily about the process that was shaking the financial sector of that country.

Montenegrin Prime Minister Duško Marković, who bears the most responsibilities in the system, right behind the DPS leader, did not talked in public about this, so far. The DPS issued a statement in which it briefly refers to the video which shows Knezević giving 97.5 thousand euros to their official Slavoljub Stijepović. Muk says that the DPS confirmed with its statement that they will not admit participation in obviously illegal actions, and that it will transfer the debate to the field of political struggle, accusing the actors of new attempts at political destabilisation, and accusing Knežević for trying to put pressure on state institutions.

“The question remains whether this affair will accelerate the stratification process within the DPS, whether it will there be political forces within the DPS that can and want to use this affair to achieve their own political ambitions. If it turns out that such forces exist and have control over significant party and state levers of power, the case of Duško Knežević could get an unusual acceleration and a different epilogue from previous similar scandals,” concluded Muk.

We could find out how Đukanović earned the first million

According to Muk, two cases could be particularly important if Knežević decides to make them public:

“Explanation of the origin of Đukanović first million and the “Telecom case”. If Knežević is ready to credibly “open” these two cases, it could be something that can’t be easy to overcome,” said Muk.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission relates Ana Đukanović with corruption during the privatisation of Telecom, which was later confirmed by her brother and the head of state and DPS, Milo Đukanović, while he “earned” the first formal million on the basis of a loan from the London branch of Piraeus Bank. From this loan, he bought shares of Prva bank, which later increased, thus explaining how he repaid the disputed loan.

In both cases, companies related to Duško Knežević are mentioned, and these cases could go out of domain of the Montenegrin judiciary, if some new moments appear.

Knežević said that, in September 2017, he talked with Milivoje Katnić, which is Special State Prosecutor, about “Telekom” affair, the Đukanović family, and villa that is being built next to the villa “Gorica”, the sale of Elektroprivreda to the Italian A2A, lawsuits with the company “Kaspia”, which is owned by family of the Minister in the Government of Azerbaijan Kamaladin Haydarov.

Author: Vladan Žugić

This article was originally published in daily newspaper Vijesti, and at Vijesti’s portal.