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Government to re-propose the adoption of the Law on the Final Account of the Budget

The forgotten SAI’s recommendations

Last year was the first one in which the Law on the Final Account of the Budget was not adopted and the first in more than a decade in which the Parliament did not adopt recommendations of the State Audit Institution (SAI) as its conclusions and obliged the Government to its implementation and reporting.

The proposals of the acts submitted by the previous Government to the previous convocation of the Parliament have been archived, and among them was the Proposal of the Law on the Final Account of the Budget for 2019. 

The report on the audit of the final account, which the State Audit Institution submitted to the Parliament in mid-October 2020 is far more important than the discussion on the final account, which is a review of budget execution. MPs must discuss this report, in accordance with the current practice and adopt the SAI’s recommendations as their conclusions and oblige the new Government to correct the shortcomings of the previous one.

SAI gave a negative opinion on the way the budget was managed in 2019, from the aspect of compliance with the law, with a diversion of attention in the part of a financial audit. SAI has given 44 recommendations to the Government on how to fix the identified problems, which is twice as many as in the audit of the previous final account. It is a good practice for the Parliament to adopt these recommendations as its conclusions, thus strengthening their obligation to the Government to report on its implementation.

We call on the Government to re-propose the adoption of the Law on the Final Account of the Budget, and the Parliament to discuss the Report on the audit of the final account as soon as possible. Moreover, the Parliament should adopt conclusions that will oblige the Government to correct major systemic problems identified by SAI.

The important conclusion that the Parliament must adopt this time is about the quality and structure of Action plan for implementation of SAI’s recommendations. The former Government reported on the fulfilment of SAI’s recommendations superficially and through a formally made Action plan, continuing the bad tradition which we criticised earlier. It is necessary for the new Government to prepare an Action plan for the implementation of SAI’s recommendations, which will finally have clear deadlines, defines specific actions to be taken, indicators that will measure whether something has been implemented and precisely defined stakeholders. In addition to new recommendations, an integral part of this plan are the unfilled recommendations from the previous year (two thirds of the total number), which must not be forgotten.

Marko Sošić
Public Policy Researcher

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Are Citizens In The First Place For Public Administration?

The first day of the regional conference ‘’Citizens first’’ was held in Belgrade today. We organised the event within the Think for Europe Network, as part of WeBER 2.0, a regional initiative dedicated to empowering civil society and citizens to be more willing to monitor and control the public administration reform process.

Tamara Srzentić, Minister of Public Administration, Digital Society and Media of Montenegro, said in her introduction that “when the community gathers to solve problems, anything is possible”. She added that sometimes happens that planning and implementation are not well connected. “This policies can be compared to a car that is loosely connected to the wheels – you will not get where you wanted and you will hurt many people in your way”, said Srzentić.

Srzentić said that policies should be made “starting with the users”, that is, to have them in the foreground. “The Government cannot do it alone – if you are part of the community, which we all are, we can help governments create a society that benefits us all”, said Srzentić.

Milena Lazarević, the Program Director of the Center for European Policies (CEP), which leads WeBER 2.0 project, pointed out the fact that the governments in the regions are implementing reforms “only for Brussels”, and not for their citizens. “Through many cases, it can be seen that when laws are passed and policies are considered, drafts are sent to Brussels and international actors, but public consultations, which should be at the heart of the process, are often not held”, said Lazarević.

Mirjam Feran, Director of Strategy and Turkey at the European Commission’s general Directorate for Enlargement and Neighbourhood Policy (DG NEAR) said that a well-functioning administration is the one where processes and institutions are created to meet the needs of society by using resources at their disposal.

“We want to create a system based on partnership that works in both directions – for both civil society and the administration. This relationship is sensitive because sometimes there are obstacles, but also misconceptions. Therefore, it is important to build a trust between civil society and public administration”, she added, emphasising that it is not an easy thing to do. “Issues of working with the government, administration and improving the functioning of public administration, as well as the importance of transparency and inclusiveness, is something that EU countries are constantly working on, because it should never stop”, concluded Ferran.

Hata Kujraković, a student from Sarajevo, who spoke as a youth representative, that said young people from entire region were very disappointed with the situation. Young people are especially frustrated and discouraged when they see how the public sector is employing through connections. “It is very demoralising when we see that all the money, effort, time we have invested in education and personal development, the sacrifices we have made – are simply not enough because we do not have ”connections”. Because of this feeling of despair, it seems  that we have only one thing left – to leave”, she said.

Gregor Virant, Director of SIGMA – a joint initiative of the OECD and the European Union and former Minister of Public Administration of Slovenia aimed at supporting the reform of administration of countries in the process of EU accession, added that “expectations of the speed of progress on the EU path in the region are high’’.

“We have to understand that things will not happen over night; reforms are a long process. We should not overestimate what can be done in two years, but we should not underestimate what can be done in 10 years”, concluded Virant.

At the conference, we presented the results of monitoring the implementation of public administration reform in the period 2019/2020 in all Western Balkan countries. Monitoring is conducted in six areas of public administration reform: strategic framework for public administration reform, policy development and coordination, civil service system and human resources management, accountability, service delivery and public finance management. Monitoring results were presented through six panels with representatives of the civil sector and administration.

We continue the event tomorrow – the agenda and tracking data are available here and you can follow us live on our Facebook account.

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WeBER “Citizens First” Conference

Second Regional WeBER “Citizens First“ Conference will be held on February 25-26, 2021.

The Minister of Public Administration, Digital Society and Media, Tamara Srzentić, as well as the Director in Directorate-General for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations (DG NEAR), Myriam Ferran, will speak at the opening of the regional conference.

The conference will present the results of monitoring the implementation of public administration reform in the period 2019/2020 in all Western Balkan countries. We will discuss key findings in six areas of public administration reform: the strategic framework of public administration reform, policy development and coordination, public service and human resource management, accountability, service delivery and public financial management.

The Conference will gather various civil society organisations, governments’ representatives, international and regional organisations, as well as distinguished independent experts on the matter.

You may find the Agenda for the Conference here.

For joining the conference, please register here. 

 

WeBER 2.0 project – Western Balkan Civil Society Empowerment for a Reformed Public Administration – is dedicated to strengthening participatory democracy through greater involvement of civil society in policy development and implementation of public administration reform in the Western Balkans. WeBER in Montenegro is lead by Institute Alternative and at regional level it consists of partners from Think for Europe Network, with the support of European Policy Centre (EPC) from Brussels. 

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How to Revive the Prosecution and Stop Abuses? – TV Show “Načisto”

How to revive the prosecution and stop abuses? – this was the topic of the Vijesti’s TV show “Načisto”, in which the guest was Stevo Muk, President of the Managing Board of IA.

„I support the goals of this reform if those goals are, conditionally speaking, a radical reform of the Prosecutor’s Office that will include personnel changes, changes at the head of the Special State Prosecutor’s Office, unblocking the position of Supreme State Prosecutor and in-depth reform of the structure and conditions for appointment of the Prosecutorial Council. What I do not agree is the procedure that has been proposed. It would be natural to consult both domestic and foreign organisations. Even if this happens, the essence still remains controversial – can you pass a law just to change one article and to turn one institution upside down, as well as whether something like that can pass as a model” – said Stevo Muk in introductory part of presentation.

He added that “the only one from which this prosecution is independent is the new parliamentary majority and the new Government, but it is very dependent on the former government, the current President and all other circles related to them. I think that there is currently a join attempt to obstruct any reform of the prosecution and to keep status quo.”

Muk also said that is legitimate for every citizen of Montenegro, including Milivoje Katnić, to engage in politics, but to engage in politics from the position of Chief Special Prosecutor is inadmissible and it has been going on for too long. The very fact that he is trying to negotiate about institutional, legal and other solutions from that position is an additional reason for his dismissal.

The Government and parliamentary majority should communicate very active and proactive with different addresses in the international community – European Union, European Commission with his departments dealing with negotiations in Chapter 23, the thematic centre for the rule of law. They should communicate with all those that can help in finding a model that will achieve all these goals, and that is to start “airing”  in the prosecution” , Muk concluded.

Here you may watch the recording from the show:

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Gender mainstreaming: Examples from Montenegro

Gender-sensitive legislation is a starting point for gender gap elimination. This analysis assesses the extent of gender perspective integration in the drafting of laws regulating labour relations, companies and health insurance. Although consideration of the potential impacts of policies on the positions of women and men is obligatory, that statutory obligation has been disregarded. This is illustrated by the Labour Law envisaging, due to the pressure exerted by the employers, that women employed on short-term contracts who take pregnancy-related sick leave would not have that period count towards the 36-month term required to obtain an open-ended contract i.e. permanent employment.

The institutional set-up for gender mainstreaming is deficient. Due to the lack of human and technical resources, the Gender Equality Division within the line Ministry is unable to issue opinions to all proposed legislation. The Gender Equality Council held only two meetings during the four-year term. During the term of the former Parliament, the Gender Equality Committee, as the concerned working body, issued opinions to fourteen proposals for laws, some of which largely influenced the position of women, such as the Proposal for the Law Amending the Law on Health Insurance. Although the Action Plan for the Gender Sensitive Parliament was adopted in 2019, there has been no monitoring of its implementation and the key objectives related to gender mainstreaming have not been achieved.

Targeted early stakeholder consultations (javne konsultacije) and full-scale public consultations (javne rasprave) aiming to collect data that would essentially respond to the need for reduced gender gap are lacking; gender gap is most evident in the domains of labour, power and money, and health. There is no advanced and gender-disaggregated statistics to serve as the basis for policy adoption and monitoring. For instance, there is no reliable statistics on the gender pay gap. The key stages in policy making are not adequately regulated, in particular with regard to the interventions following the completion of public consultations.

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Mapping Civil Society Responses in Confronting Organised Crime in the Western Balkans

Organised crime and corruption are common problems in all Western Balkan countries. Considering that Montenegro has had the same ruling party for almost 30 years, and that the 2020 Freedom House Report rated it as a transitional or hybrid regime, it is no wonder that numerous international and domestic reports are citing that this political environment did not contribute to the fight against OC. Although small, Montenegro is known as a country in which the war between cocaine clans has escalated, where journalists who investigated such cases have been attacked, and as a country that has a serious problem with organised crime. Civil society organisations (CSOs) in Montenegro are recognised as a very important part of society, but those that were critical of the existing problems were often characterised by the Government as “enemies of the state”.

This analysis is the result of qualitative research aimed at presenting the efforts of CSOs in fighting OC and corruption. As Montenegro is not a big country, the number of CSOs focused on the fight against OC and corruption is small. This is why the research included organisations whose domain of work in the area of fight against corruption and OC is much broader, and whose activities tackle this problem directly or indirectly. There are very few organisations that deal strictly with OC, for reasons of complexity and sensitivity of the topic itself, among other things. The profiles of organisations included in the research encompass those that fight against OC and corruption by conducting watchdog activities, engage in investigative journalism and crime prevention, as well as those that provide victim support and offer education. The IA research team has conducted in-depth interviews with representatives of seven such organisations, and has found that the work of most of them is related to victim support.