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NGO initiative to the President of Montenegro regarding Ombudsman

Institute Alternative is one of the 21 signatories of the initiative to the President of Montenegro, Mr Milo Đukanović, to propose to the Parliament of Montenegro professor Nebojša Vučinić Ph.D. as new Protector of Human Rights and Freedoms of Montenegro (Ombudsman).

Montenegro does not have an Ombudsman at present, since the former one, Mr. Šućko Baković, retired over a month ago.

The initiative states that proposing professor Vučinić as Protector of Human Rights and Freedoms would allow Montenegro to appoint an Ombudsman of an international renown, who fulfills all the requirements and has all the qualities to be a Protector of Human Rights and Freedoms of all citizens of Montenegro, as well as all others who would find themselves under the jurisdiction of the country’s authorities.

In addition to professor Vučinić’s rich biography, including ten years of judgeship with the European Court of Human Rights, the NGOs particularly considered worth mentioning his responsible public appearances, pointing to the need to harmonise law and practice in Montenegro with international human rights standards. “In addition to indisputable expertise, his opinion and criticise the work of state bodies is a characteristic that particularly recommends him for the position of Protector of Human Rights and Freedoms”, NGOs stated in their letter to the President.

The NGOs also referred to the fact that professor Vučinić is supposed to retire by the end of 2020: “Although we are aware that Mr. Vučinić will be eligible for retirement at the end of the next calendar year, we are nonetheless convinced that he could significantly improve performance standards of the Ombudsman institution within that year, enact important opinions, significantly influence two yearly reports of the institution and thereby implement in practice his knowledge acquired as judge of the European Court of Human Rights. We also highlight that the president of the European Court of Human Rights is regularly appointed, for example, in one year mandates. Also, avoiding to propose professor Vučinić as Ombudsman only due to his advanced age would constitute discrimination, which is a fact that needs to be kept in mind”, human rights NGOs emphasised.

Signatories of the initiative are:

1. Human Rights Action (HRA), Tea Gorjanc Prelević, Executive Director;
2. Adamas, Katarina Bošković, Executive Director;
3. ANIMA – Centre for Women’s and Peace Education, Ljupka Kovačević, Coordinator;
4. Centre for Democracy and Human Rights (CEDEM), Milena Bešić, Director;
5. Centre for Investigative Journalism, Milka Tadić Mijović, President;
6. Women’s Rights Center, Maja Raičević, Executive Director;
7. Montenegrin Youth Initiative, Ćazim Lisičić, Executive Director;
8. Committee of Lawyers for the Protection of Human Rights, lawyer Velija Murić, Executive Director;
9. European Association for Law and Finance (EALF), lawyer Maja Živković, legal representative,
10. Institute Alternative, Stevo Muk, President of the Managing Board;
11. Institute for Social and Educational Policies, Mitar Radonjić, Executive Director;
12. Media Centre, Goran Đurović, Director;
13. Young Roma, Samir Jaha, Executive Director;
14. Open Center “Bona Fide” Pljevlja, Sabina Talović, Executive Director;
15. Prima, Aida Perović, Executive Director;
16. Women’s Safe House, Liljana Raičević, President;
17. Media Trade Union, Marijana Camović, President;
18. Alliance for Children and Youth – House, Pavić Radović, Executive Director;
19. Council for the Implementation of Youth Policy, Milica Đukanović, Exeecutive Director;
20. Association of Parents, Kristina Mihailović, Executive Director;
21. Association for Protection and Promotion of Citizen’s Rights “Legal Representative”, Budislav Minić, executive legal representative.

Please find attached original initiative sent to he President of Montenegro on 31 July 2019.

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A success story: Montenegrin CSOs brought closer the budget and the citizens

With the support of Institute Alternative, nine projects that brought budgetary aspect of national and local public policies closer to citizens were successfully implemented in the past six months.

From January to July 2019, nine projects aiming to ensure effective oversight of public spending were implemented in six municipalities. These projects were implemented within our grant scheme of the project “Money Watch – Civil Society, Guarding the Budget”.

These projects enabled citizens to learn more on revenues and expenditures of the state and local budget, how their money is being spent, public debt, concessions, money allocated for employment of persons with disabilities, Roma inclusion, public health etc. This was conducted through interactive forms such as exhibitions, street campaigns, TV shows and media reports and publications.

Projects were implemented by the Center for Investigative Journalism of Montenegro, Association of Professional Journalists of Montenegro, Association of Youth with Disabilities of Montenegro, Institute for Legal Studies, Roma Youth Organization “Walk With Us – Phiren amenca”, Natura, Democratic Centre of Bijelo Polje, HOPE and Regional Development Agency – Business Association of Ulcinj – in municipalities of Podgorica, Bijelo Polje, Berane, Kolašin, Herceg Novi and Ulcinj.

Capacities of more than 80 representatives of other CSOs were strengthen through these projects. They were provided with trainings and interactive workshops where they learned about budgetary side of different public policies, while decision makers were offered nearly 80 recommendations for improving public policies.

Institute Alternative has conducted grant scheme with the financial support of the European Union and co-financing of the Ministry of Public Administration, lead by idea that managing budget and public finances should not be an exclusive competence of a narrow circle of expert organisations and institutions.

Monitoring of preparation, adoption and budget managing must become an integral part of the work of all organizations that advocate for changes in public policies or want to monitor their implementation, in order to critically assess and propose recommendations.

Total grant for these projects was 84 548 euro, and the individual project value ranges from 9.000 to 11.000 euro.

Overall objective of the project “Money Watch – Civil Society, Guarding the Budget”, implemented by the Institute Alternative, in partnership with the Institute for Public Finances from Zagreb and NGO New horizon from Ulcinj, is to contribute to the fight against corruption by more effective scrutiny of public spending.

Ana Đurnić, grant scheme coordinator

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New IA Project: Fostering Grassroot Anti-Corruption Work in Health and Education in the Western Balkans

Institute alternative (IA)  with partners from the region started implementation of the new project ”Fostering Grassroots Anti-Corruption Work in Health and Education in the Western Balkans” in July of 2019.

Aim of the project is to foster civil society anti-corruption work in the Western Balkans by supporting collaboration of anti-corruption organisations and grassroots groups which are well grounded in areas of interest for the majority of population – health and education. The initiative will focus on corruption in public procurement because it is a dominant method of spending public funds in most of the countries OSF operates in and the one most prone to corruption.

Specific objectives of this project are to bridge the gap between grassroots organisations active in health and education and professional anti-corruption organisations; to instigate positive competition among anti-corruption institutions in the Western Balkans; to encourage participating partners to exchange knowledge, methodologies, skills, build cross-country support networks, advocate for each other in international forums etc.

In each participating country one national anti-corruption organisation dealing with public procurement was selected, as well as 2 grassroots organisations – one dealing with education and another with health.

In Montenegro, Institute Alternative was selected as a national anti-corruption organisation dealing with public procurement, while Centre for Civic Education (CCE) was selected as grassroot organisation dealing with education and Trade Union of Montenegrin Physicians as grassroot organisation dealing with health.

During the project, the following activities will be implemented:

  • Common, easy-to-use methodology to monitor public procurement on key indicators will be developed;
  • Research: application of the easy-to-use methodology on the series of the same type of public procurement in all participating countries in the same time span (e.g. one year).
  • Drafting a national report by the each country team to be used as a resource for the comparative report;
  • Production of comparative report: comparative report will highlight best practices in public procurement monitoring across the region to inform development of context-appropriate country standards;
  • Development of advocacy strategies based on findings and formulated policy proposals (national and regional);
  • Organisation of the final conference: convening of civil society organisations working on anti-corruption in health and education to share approaches to advocacy and narrative change will be held upon the completion of monitoring and reports drafting.

The initiative will be conducted in 6 Western Balkan countries: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia. OSF Serbia will lead the initiative. The end of the project is planned for the end of the year 2020.

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Results of the Contest You4EU – Citizen participation 2.0

Within the You4EU project , we have selected the winner and another five best digital ideas for tools aimed at encouraging citizens’ activism. The best digital solution will receive a prize amounting 2.000€, while all six finalists, one of which is from Montenegro, will get a chance to present their ideas at the debate in September in Zagreb.

The award for the best digital solution goes to the organisation CIECODE (Centro de Investigación y Estudios sobre Coherencia y Desarrollo) from Spain. Their project „Personal Political Analyst” is conceived as a voice assistant which allows monitoring of political parties’ electoral promises within election campaigns for national, European, local and other elections.

Along with the winning solution, five other finalists will have an opportunity to present their ideas at the event that will be held in the end of September 2019 in Zagreb.

Beside the winning solution, the following ideas will be presented:

– Pin’em comes second on the list, as a mobile application which allows citizens to geographically map cases of corruption. All the identified and reported cases will constitute the corruption map of Croatia. Duje Prkut, Borna Sor and Luak Abrus make the project team which proposed the idea.

– In the third place is a team of three people – Stjepan Perko, Duje Kozomara and Andrej Bodrušić, with the idea named Izbori_se. Izbori_se platform is designed as a tool for online tracking of specific law amendments, as well as for evaluating the work of independent bodies and agencies by smaller online social communities gathered around specific topics, laws and institutions.

– Parlamento 2030 comes fourth, and it was proposed by the same organization whose idea has won the contest – organisation CIECODE. Parlamento 2030 is platform aimed at facilitating monitoring of activities of the Spanish Parliament in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda.

– Two ideas focused on local issues share the fifth place – “Easy Local Budget”, proposed by Bojan Milovanović, GM Optimist, and “Fix My City” proposed by NGO Active Zone from Montenegro. First one aims to enable citizens easy access to local budgets data, while the second envisages a tool for citizens to easily and quickly report infrastructural problems in three municipalities through an online map.

Within the Contest, U4EU project team received more than 40 applications from individuals and organisations across Europe, proposing ideas for a digital solution which would strengthen citizens’ activism and improve communication between citizens and decisionmakers.

The selection process for choosing the winner included two rounds. In the first round, thee international experts evaluated submitted applications according to the predetermined criteria. After that, best ten solutions were evaluated by U4EU consortium: Belgrade Open School, PiNA, Institute Alternative, Access Info Europe and Gong.

Each organisation proposed five finalists and selected winner among them.

We congratulate the winner and all the finalists and thanks to everyone who participated!

Institute Alternative organised the Contest together with partnering organisations from Croatia (Gong), Serbia (Belgrade Open School), Slovenia (PiNA) and Spain (Access Info Europe) within the Project „YOU4EU – Citizen Participation 2.0“. The Project lasts from September 2018 until February 2020 with the support of the European Union within the Europe for Citizens Programme.

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13,300 lawsuits against the state

Last year, state had to pay 16 million euros for lawsuits – nine million for the debt principal, and the rest for court expenses and enforcement costs. Problem of double payment is easily illustrated by an example from the Ministry of Interior and employee who sued the state for principal debt of 1.45 euros, and the state paid an additional 513.36 for litigation and enforcement costs.

Last year, Montenegrin courts ruled in 4,025 civil cases in which the defendant was state. Due to the loss of disputes which were mainly initiated by public servants for violation of their various rights, the damage for the state budget was 16,087.157.48. This is not a final sum, because additional costs are expected in 2019 and the following years , having in mind that at the end of 2018 as many as 13,355 cases remained open. The amount of 16 million is not a real cost, since the actual claim of the claimants or the debt principal was almost half – 9,389,878.15 euros, while the rest of amount is litigation, i.e. court and enforcement costs.

The problem of double payment is easily illustrated with only one example form the Ministry of Interior, which along with the Ministry of Defense, is the record holder in lawsuits against them. One employee from this Ministry sued the state for a principal debt of 1.45 euros and received an additional 515.36 euros, or 350 euros for litigation costs and 165.36 euros for enforcement costs. At the end of 2018, citizens paid 1,537,701.59 euros for the principal debt, 451.344,81 for litigation and 253,518.91 for enforcement costs for the unlawful work of the Ministry of Interior. The record holder of lost disputes, and therefore damage for the budget, is the Ministry of Defense whose mistakes cost the citizens 1,199,463.41 euros.

Complete cost for the unlawful work of state institutions exceeds 130 million in the last five years. 2019 Budget Law prescribes that for the “obligation from the previous period” as much as 18,530,001 euros will be spent, as well as 1.8 million euros on litigation costs.

We did not find out why the citizens are paying millions of euros each year because of the unlawful work of state institutions while no official is held responsible for this, because the General Secretariat of the Government did not answer questions. Also, the General Secretariat did not consider necessary to explain to the public what the Government plans to do regarding the data from the 2018 annual report of the Protector of Property and Legal Interests, which shows that the problem of managing disputes is not being resolved.

Aside from no accountability, there is not even a clear accounting record of litigation expenditures that would allow an overview of incurred expenditures with the analytical and subanalytical classification, such as principal debt, interest rate, as well as costs of proceedings and enforcement. The Ministry of Finance said for ‘’Dan’’ that ‘’resolving this issue is not their competence’’, passing the responsibility to other departments.

-Institutions should keep records on litigation payments, payments based on court judgment, as well as enforcement. Bearing in mind that the Central Bank of Montenegro (CBCG) makes enforced payment from the main account of the State Treasury, the Ministry of Finance’s only stated involvement is keeping a record of these transactions.

Last year, 99.95% of expenditures on court decisions were collected as enforced through CBCG.

Ministry did not calculate planned cost of litigation in 2019 of over 20 million euros on the basis of a careful analysis of the situation so far, but using a free estimate because, as they say, these costs are difficult to predict.

Protector of Property and Legal Interests of Montenegro Dragana Đuranović did not think that she need to further explain the losses of state money, apart from what is already stated in the annual report. She claims that cooperation with the authorities with most disputes, namely the Ministry of Interior and Ministry of Defense, has been “continuously improved’’, but does not explain how.

Protector stated they are not doing an analysis of the disputes against the state nor informing the authorities in order to implement measures for prevention of disputes, as recommended by the SAI. Đuranović said that they report to the Government quarterly and considers her job completed.

The extent to which the cooperation with the Ministry of Interior is ‘’improved’’ can be illustrated by the fact that the Ministry spent as much as 29.7 million from the 2015 to the end of 2018, paying off debts arising from court cases due to violation of various laws, primarily those related to employee rights. According to data obtained by ‘’Dan’’ and Institute Alternative, expenditures from court judgments for 2015 amounted 4,687,019; for 2016 – 13.423.370; 2017 – 6.201.675 and for 2018 – 5.433.089 euros.

It is interesting that the Ministry of Interior paid compensation for overtime hours to its employees for years, even though they did not have software to record working hours. This is stated in the document of the SAI, Report on the control audit of the MOI, from July 2018.

SAI recommended that the Ministry of Interior, in cooperation with the Ministry of Finance, develops procedure to control the employees’ salaries, in accordance with the Instructions on the work of State Treasury that was in use at the time of the audit. The Ministry says that they are taking measures to fully implement the SAI’s recommendations, both in terms of internal procedures and in the areas of cooperation between authorities, since the implementation of some recommendations implies the involvement of other departments.

Until October last year, the Ministry of Interior spent a total of 78,730.76 euros on compensation agreements. According to information obtained by Institute Alternative, a large number of agreements were signed in May 2018, mostly with officials from Bijelo Polje, who were hired overtime during the protest organized by the Democratic Front. Namely, the officers worked overtime during that period because a part of the employees from Bijelo Polje were hired to assist in Podgorica during the protests.

Instead of offering a solution, the Government intimidates officials

According to Marko Sošić (IA), since the release of the SAI’s Report on Labor Disputes in 2016, the Government has not addressed either the causes of the problems (nonexistent or poor records of work and employees rights with violation of regulations by the senior managers), or the management of the consequences of disputes and how the state is fighting disputes and rationalizing their costs.

The only effort of the Government to solve these problems is to try to intimidate those who sue the state by publishing lists and calling them out. At the same time, in almost all cases, the authorities do not pay in a timely manner expenses of the final judgments, but rather wait for the enforced payment and increase of total expenses. In the Ministry of Interior, absolutely all of the cases were paid by enforcement. This is not only responsibility of individual institutions, but a systemic problem of chronic irresponsibility towards citizen’s money, for which the Government and, first and foremost, Ministry of Finance are responsible – said Sošić.

Author: Milan Sekulović

This article was prepared within the project ‘’Money Watch – Civil Society Guarding the Budget!’’ that is implemented in partnership with Institute of Public Finance from Zagreb and NGO New Horizon from Ulcinj. The project is financially supported by the European Union and co-financed by the Ministry of Public Administration of Montenegro.

This article was originally published in daily newspapers ”Dan”.