Workshop on “My money” portal
The updated portal ”My Money” presented
At the workshop organised for the representatives of NGOs and media, we presented an updated and upgraded portal ‘’My Money’’, a visualisation of state-level budget data, which provides citizens a simple insight in the way that administration collects and spends their money.
The portal was launched in 2017, as the first civil society visualisation of the state budget in Montenegro. Despite the calls of civil society, budget data in Montenegro are still officially available only in the often unsearchable .pdf format. There is no ‘’budget for citizens’’ at the state level, so any budget examination is difficult. Therefore, ‘’My Money’’ was created with the intention of creating a tool for citizens and civil society, who will have easy and simple insight into the details of the state budget, an important part of the debate on all public policies and activities of public administration.
Version of the portal presented at the workshop has been improved, both in terms of functionality and in terms of content:
- The portal now contains almost a full decade of budget data – all annual budgets since 2011 until now are shown. Budget data can be searched by economic and organisational classification, i.e. by type of incomes and expenditures, as well as by institutions, with a detailed overview of all programs.
- One of the new contents is the review of the implementation of the Public Finance Management Reform Program, a strategic document by which the administration, among other things, committed itself to a radical change in the way in which it plans and represents budget spending. Portal provides to find out in a transparent way that what the Government has promised and to monitor the
implementation dynamics of the Program. - Improved display of capital budget provides the search of capital projects in the municipalities and programs in which they are being implemented or the amount of the budgetary funds allocated to the project. The basic data on the projects are completed with extracts from the reports of the Public Works Administration and Traffic Administration, so that they can inform the citizens about what was done to implement the promised project
The portal also contains a ‘’Budget Dictionary’’ with definitions of all budget terms, as well as a ‘’Budget Library’’ that contains all annual budget documents since 2011 until now together with the laws and by-laws regulating this area.
At the workshop for civil society representatives, project coordinator Dina Bajramspahić and project assistant Nikoleta Pavićević, presented guidelines for using the portal and many practical examples.
Workshop was organised within our project “Money Watch – Civil Society Guarding the Budget” that we implement in partnership with Institute of Public Finance from Zagreb and NGO New Horizon from Ulcinj. The project is financially supported by European Union and co-financed by the Ministry of Public Administration of Montenegro.
IA at the Fair of NGOs
Institute Alternative was one of the 36 promoters that presented work of their organisation on the Fair of non – governmental organisations, held on June 22, 2019 in Berane. The fair called „NGO EXPO 2019“ was organised for the fourth time, and during the past years this fair gathered citizens and activists from civil society in Podgorica, Budva and Bijelo Polje.
Motto of this year’s Fair organized by Center for the Development of Non-Governmental Organizations and Resource Center for the NGOs in Montenegro was ‘’The Spirit of Activism’’.
This Fair is organized with aim to contribute improving the image and credibility of civil society organisations in Montenegro. The fair was an opportunity to improve and increase the visibility of the activities of civil society organisations and show their role in democratic processes.
NGOs had opportunity to present the results of their work and to communicate directly with citizens.
At Institute Alterantive’s booth there were displayed numerous publications prepared by IA in the last period.
The visitors of the fair were most interested in publications regarding the Public Administration Reform, as well as publication with presented results of public opinion survey on the Police. The citizens asked the most questions about employment in public administration. They were also interested in reforms that are being implemented and how the reforms affects the citizens themselves.
Below you can see how the booth of Institute Alternative looked like, and how was the atmosphere at the Fair.
On the link below you can watch the part from the TV show “NVO Sektor” where our Dragana Jaćimović talked about IA displayed at the booth and what the citizes were most interested in:
Muk: Montenegro made too little of a progress in fields disputable from the very beginning
Montenegro has progressed on the European path, but not enough if taking into account the resources invested in this process, primarily the investments of the EU and other international and local actors, stated President of the Managing Board of Institute Alternative, Stevo Muk.
Muk commented on the seven years of the Montenegrin negotiations with the European Union for the European Pulse. Montenegro had made particularly poor progress on those fields that were debatable from the very beginning and which we are negotiating from the first day, Muk stated.
However, the rule of law, good governance and corruption permeate many other issues of negotiation, such as the environment, where it is noticeable almost on the daily basis. The impression is that enthusiasm was significantly more present in the first years of negotiations, possibly because issues of the institutional and legal framework have been mostly addressed. But, when it came time for concrete results, we entered into a phase of stagnation, Muk said.
Answering the question of whether the Montenegrin Government shows true readiness to accept the EU standards or is only trying to satisfy the form and essence stays aside, Muk assessed that readiness for change, unfortunately, exists only in those issues where the interests and monopolies of big ones are not threatened.
While when it comes to sensitive issues, state structures change only as much as they have to. And it seems that they have to change less and less, as stated by Muk, because the internal pressure is weak, and the EU conditionality policy shows its limitations.
European Pulse is an electronic monthly magazine published by Centre for Civic Education(CCE).
Ministry of Finance to Organise a Public Discussion on the Public Procurement Law
We call upon the Ministry of Finance to organise a public discussion on the Draft Law on Public Procurement in order to enable all the relevant stakeholders to take part in the preparation of this document which will regulate multi-million budgetary spending.
Instead of public discussion, on 10 June 2019 the Ministry of Finance announced public consultations on the Proposal of the Law on Public Procurement, stating in the Call that “it was innovated compared to the version publicly discussed in the period February – March 2018’’.
More than a year has passed since the previous public discussion. Also, the Draft Law has been amended several times and sent twice to the European Commission for opinion – in September 2018 and March 2019. Therefore, it is obvious that this act has undergone significant changes on which the public must be informed through organising public discussion, not the public consultations.
According to the Decree on the Election of NGO Representatives in the Working Bodies of the State Administration and Organising Public Discussion within the Preparation of Laws and Strategies, consulting the interested public involves giving initiatives, proposals, suggestions and comments in the initial phase of draft law or strategy, within no less than 15 days from the date of publication of the public call for consultations. However, within the Call for public consultations, the Ministry of Finance envisaged a seven-day deadline for submitting comments and suggestions to a comprehensive document that is not at all ‘’in its initial phase’’.
On the other side, according to the same Decree, the Ministry would have to organise a public discussion that would last minimum 20 and maximum 40 days. It is important to note that this is a document which contains over 200 articles, and in order to analyse it properly, seriously and professionally – seven days is not enough.
Only one day after the Ministry of Finance published this Call, General Director of the Directorate for Public Procurement Policy shared with the members of the Working Group for Chapter 5 – Public Procurement, the Draft Action Plan on Public Procurement Reform and Public-Private Partnership, without mentioning a single word about the Law on Public Procurement and possible involvement of the members of the Working Group in the preparation of this, far more significant document.
This confirmed the opinion of the European Commission (EC) expressed in the latest Report on Montenegro that although “CSOs participate in various working groups, including on the accession negotiation chapters, often they are not given sufficient information or notice to be able to contribute meaningfully to the process, or their contributions are ignored”.
It is important to note that at the very beginning of the EC’s Report it was emphasized that, looking ahead, Montenegro should focus in particular on competition policy, environment and climate change, as well as public procurement.
Therefore, we call upon the Ministry of Finance to organise a public discussion on this significant Law regulating the annual public spending of over half a billion EUR for public procurement, and to enable the participation of all interested parties in the preparation of this act.
Stevo Muk, President of the Managing Board, Institute Alternative
Ana Novaković, Executive Director, Center for Development of Non-Governmental Organizations
Daliborka Uljarević, Executive Director, Centre for Civic Education
Vanja Ćalović, Executive Director, Network for Affirmation of NGO Sector MANS
Tea Gorjanc Prelević, Executive Director, Human Rights Action
Jovana Marović, Executive Director, Politikon Network
Zlatko Vujović, President of the Managing Board,Centre for Monitoring and Research
Boris Marić, Director, Center for Civil Liberties
Goran Đurović, Director, Media Centre
Milenko Vojičić, President of the Assembly, Association of Youth with Disabilities of Montenegro and memeber of the Working Group for Chapter 5 – Public Procurement
Ana Đurnić, Public Policy Researcher, Institute Alternative and member of the Working Group for Chapter 5 – Public Procurement
Workshop: Where Does My Money Go?
Institute Alternative (IA) is organizing the workshop ‘’Where Does My Money Go’’ in order to introduce representatives of the NGO sector and the media with our innovated website ‘’My Money’’ and to provide instructions for easy search.
The aim of presentation is better understanding of its future users of the budget and its higher availability in a way that budget information can be accessed through a single click. The visualization of the budget allows easy check on how the state collected and spent money and also gives access to the budgets of individual institutions by years and programs filters. Capital projects can also be accessed on the website, by using interactive map of Montenegro, which contains an overview of capital projects and its information. In this regard, we will present practical examples to show how these information can be found on the website.
Speakers:
Dina Bajramspahić, project coordinator
Nikoleta Pavićević, project assistaint
The workshop will be held on Thursday, June 27, at the hotel ‘’Podgorica’’, starting at 11 am. This activity is conducted within the project ‘’Money Watch: Civil Society, Guarding the Budget’’, which we implement with the Institute for Public Finances and NGO New Horizon, with the support of the European Union and the co-financing of the Ministry of Public Administration.