Panel discussion “Crisis Management – Lessons Learned from COVID-19”
The institutions responsible for oversight of the Government’s measures failed to protect the rights of citizens during the coronavirus epidemic
Podgorica, PR Service
The Parliament of Montenegro, the Constitutional Court and the Agency for the Protection of Personal Data did not act proactively to oversight the decision-making of the Government of Montenegro during the coronavirus epidemic and failed to protect the rights of Montenegrin citizens.
This was stated during the panel discussion “Crisis Management – Lessons Learned from COVID-19”, organised by the Institute Alternative.
While presenting the Draft Analysis “Montenegro’s Response to COVID-19”, Dragana Jaćimović, Public Policy Researcher at Institute Alternative, said that Montenegro effectively managed the COVID-19 crisis in the early stages, and that systemic flaws were revealed over time.
She reminded that the key role in the management of the epidemic was initially played by the National Coordination Body, or NCB, while after the change of government, towards the end of 2020, that role was taken over by the Council for fighting Coronavirus.
“The fact that two different governments were in power during the COVID-19 crisis in Montenegro, reflected on the extent of the oppressiveness of the introduced measures and resulted in different approaches. “In the first wave of the pandemic, the citizens highly supported severe measures, but the support for the measures decreased over time,” Jaćimović said.
She assessed that the selective exchange of information, unclear communication of measures, violation of human rights and violation of the Constitution contributed to the negative attitude of the public towards the competent bodies.
“The lack of institutional proactivity in the oversight of the Government’s decision-making was evident when it came to the Parliament, the Constitutional Court and the Agency for Personal Data Protection, which failed to protect the rights of the citizens of Montenegro,” Jaćimović warned.
She pointed to the Government’s decision to publish a list of persons who were ordered mandatory isolation due to being abroad as a negative practice in terms of respect for human rights. “In the end, we also had court proceedings, where the state had to pay compensation to the citizens due to the publication of this data,” Jaćimović added.
Speaking about the negative practices regarding the management of the epidemic, in the part concerning the suppression of the spread of fake news and disinformation, Jaćimović said that in the first two months of the outbreak of the epidemic, Montenegro initiated five criminal proceedings for causing panic and disorder due to posts on social media networks.
“According to official data, Montenegro had 70 ventilators at the beginning of the pandemic. By April 2020, health institutions were additionally equipped, after which they had 151 ventilators at their disposal. The battle for ventilators that took place on the global market did not bypass Montenegro either, so Montenegro made urgent procurement without a defined delivery date and we also had a situation where a part of the purchased respirators was not functional,” Jaćimović said.
She pointed out that at the beginning of the epidemic, there was a shortage of protective masks, not only for citizens but also for medical personnel.
“The lack of protective equipment was not the only problem, but also the number of medical personnel was insufficient. According to the data of the Union of Doctors of Medicine, at that time there were 42 epidemiologists for the whole of Montenegro, and a very small number of people performed complete PCR diagnostics,” Jaćimović said.
Since there is no unified information on the total number of donated vaccines, based on the official announcements of the Government, which IA used as a source, about 660 000 doses of vaccines were donated to Montenegro.
“When it comes to the procurement of vaccines, protective equipment and tests for COVID-19, in the beginning, Montenegro mainly relied on donations from other countries and organisations. Later, the procurement of these funds was carried out through non-transparent and partially unsuccessful public procurement procedures,” Jaćimović said.
She added that Montenegro had very good cooperation with the World Health Organisation, as well as the European Union, which was demonstrated through joint activities and projects that were carried out throughout the pandemic.
The President of the Committee for Health, Labour and Social Welfare, Srđan Pavićević reminded that ten days after the formation of the executive power in December 2020, the first session of the Committee was held, at which the consultative hearing of the Minister of Health at that time, Jelena Borovinić Bojović, was held. Later on, two more sessions of the Committee dedicated to the coronavirus were held.
“I think that the Committee did a professional and fair job. I think that our monitoring of the situation was permanent, obvious and transparent,” Pavićević said.
He believes that, according to the capacities at his disposal, the Montenegrin medical system responded correctly to the first challenges when the coronavirus appeared.
“We have encountered everything that the world has encountered, including many developed countries and medical systems. We were faced with a lack of strategy, staff and consumables. “We supplied respirators very quickly,” Pavićević said.
He believes that it was a paradoxical situation that during the coronavirus epidemic, there were patients infected with the coronavirus in the Clinical Center, while the regular program was implemented for the patients in other hospitals. “I believe that there was enough space to do it differently, to ensure that contaminated zones and infected patients are distributed among hospitals and that the Clinical Center of Montenegro should have remained a basic, umbrella institution that guarantees a continuous life, for people who are infected with covid”, Pavićević said.
The head of the office of the World Health Organisation in Montenegro, Mina Brajović, indicated that immediately before the pandemic, at the end of 2018, the global body for monitoring preparedness at the world level, which was established by the World Health Organisation, made an assessment of preparedness capacities and concluded that no country in the world is ready in terms of response to the pandemic.
“As for Montenegro, in 2019, in cooperation with the Institute for Public Health, the Ministry of Health and all other sectors, we supported an extensive evaluation of national capacities for prevention, preparedness, readiness, response and recovery. That report showed that the level of capacity according to various criteria was at a modest level and that it was an alarm before the crisis; that it is necessary to invest and undertake urgent interventions to strengthen the capacities for health security”, Brajović said.
She said that the World Bank Report on the double shock indicated that the fiscal space at the global level for strengthening public health capacities for preparedness is drastically and alarmingly reduced.
“As a world, we are in a serious problem, because we did not learn the lesson from the pandemic, the largest in the history of the United Nations system, that it is necessary to invest in health security, because by investing in health and health security, we invest in the economy and international security,” Brajović said.
She claimed that currently, the data on the coronavirus at a global level, in the region and Montenegro is promising and encouraging.
“We from the World Health Organisation estimate that this year should be the year in which we put an end to the pandemic,” Brajović said.
“With surgical precision, COVID-19 pointed the finger and showed the weak points and links of the system in terms of preparedness and response to crises in Montenegro and around the world,” Brajović stated.
During the discussion, the Program Director of CAZAS, Sanja Šišović pointed out that the consequences of COVID are being forgotten.
“The research we did showed that the Clinical Center, which is the lifeblood of the health system, stopped outpatient examinations. We did a quick questionnaire among patients, which showed that 60% of them never got a new appointment, especially not promptly. And when it comes to mental health, I think it is a crisis that is knocking on all doors,” Šišović said.
Doctor Đorđije Krnjević, who is the Head of the Internal Medicine Clinic in the Clinical Center of Montenegro, said that many things could have been done better during the coronavirus epidemic if there had been “more hearing”.
“Unfortunately, we were in a position where turbulent social changes were taking place in Montenegro, an unstable political system where everyone was trying to use cheap tricks, through the health system, to add another voice and position themselves on the political scene. It cost us a lot,” Krnjević said.
He pointed to three problems that the Clinical Center of Montenegro is faced with – lack of spatial capacity, shortage of high and intermediate medical staff and anesthesiologists.
Social Democrats’ MP Boris Mugoša said that the coronavirus crisis showed the vulnerabilities of the health system, stating that we should now focus on areas in the health system that can be improved.
You can watch the recording of the panel discussion at this link: https://www.facebook.com/IAThinkTank/videos/884409812641187/
The panel discussion was organised as part of the regional project “Enabling Just Change in the International Health Care Governance COVID -19 Pandemic and Lessons Learned from the Western Balkans“, which is financially supported by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.
IAs’ three recommendations for more efficient oversight of public procurement
The Institute alternative has been monitoring the work of parliamentary committees for years, with a special focus on the work of five committees – for economy, finance and budget, human rights and freedoms, anti-corruption, political system, justice and administration, and security and defence.
We summarised our proposals through certain initiatives to improve the work of the committees, such as holding joint thematic sessions, planning control and consultative hearings and appeals for consideration of key reports. Once again, we paid special attention to the Committee for Economy, Finance and Budget and the need for this Committee to exercise more effective oversight over spending on public procurement. In this regard, we also made three specific recommendations:
- Consultative hearing on consideration of the annual report of the Ministry of Finance on public procurement
- Consultative hearing on consideration of the recommendations of the State Audit Institution for the improvement of the public procurement system
- Control hearing of the ministries with the highest annual expenditure on direct contract procurement
Public procurement area is recognised as at high-risk for corruption in Montenegro. Over 2 billion euros are spent on public procurement during the four years (the duration of the mandate of the parliamentary convocation), while their participation in the total GDP of Montenegro amounts to an average of 10% to 15%. These data point to the need for increased parliamentary control of the public procurement system, which, however, is lacking.
The role of the Parliament of Montenegro in the control of public procurement is limited. This practice is largely conditioned by normative decisions that did not recognise the importance of parliamentary consideration of the reports of key institutions that are responsible for the management and control of public procurement procedures, except for the consideration of the reports of the Commission for the Control of Public Procurement Procedures. The Annual Report on Public Procurement of the Ministry of Finance is considered and adopted by the Government, and the same goes for the report on inspection supervision of public procurement. However, although the competencies currently available to the Assembly are limited to a certain extent, the Parliament could exercise better control over public procurement based on them, as well as the control mechanisms defined by the Constitution and the Rules of Procedure of the Assembly.
The Institute alternative, through active monitoring of public procurement, revealed a significant increase in consumption through direct contract, i.e. direct selection of bidders for procurements worth up to 5,000 euros. These procurements are not carried out through the Montenegrin electronic public procurement system (CEJN) and do not enable competition among bidders, which is why they are particularly risky for corruption. During 2021, some ministries and municipalities spent up to 95% of the procurement budget in this way, which requires special attention from the Assembly. With one of the amendments to the Law on Public Procurement adopted by this Committee in December of the previous year, the threshold for this type of procurement was increased from 5,000 to 8,000 euros. On the other hand, the amendment intended to limit the percentage of this type of consumption was not adopted, thus giving the freedom to have more money at their disposal than before. That is why this topic deserves a consultative hearing by representatives of the Ministry of Finance and institutions that use this mechanism the most. In 2021, among the ministries, and according to the findings of the IA, were the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Capital Investments, the Ministry of Ecology, Spatial Planning and Urbanism, the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Economic Development. In this way, these ministries procured, among other things, honey, porcelain coffee set, glasses case, shirts, gold cufflinks, belts, suits, etc., but also goods and services that are typically procured on an annual basis through the open procedure – insurance, airline tickets, software maintenance, washing and maintenance of official vehicles and procurement of auto parts and the alike. IA will continue to analyse this part of spending in 2022 as soon as the information about it is available (from March 1st, 2023) and submit it to the EFB Committee for review as material for the hearing.
The State Audit Institution has been controlling the public procurement of institutions for years and points out problems, both individual and systemic, that require a broader consensus on potential solutions. Therefore, their recommendations are a good guide for detecting problems and determining the direction of further regulation of this area, so we consider it important that the Committee organise a special consultative hearing with a focus on considering the SAI’s recommendations related to public procurement, and the degree of implementation of the given recommendations.
The Committee for Economy, Finance and Budget represents the central place for directing activities in this field, therefore we suggest that this Committee organise individual consultative and control hearings on the mentioned topics.
We strive to improve parliamentary oversight of spending on public procurement through the project “Public procurement under the spotlight – Making Watchdogs Work! “, which aims to empower and motivate watchdogs to combat corruption and undue influence in public procurement. The project specifically aims to enhance dialogue on corruption in public procurement and to encourage institutional response to corruption, as well as to influence the debate on public procurement policy and legislation. The project is implemented with the financial support of the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Serbia and Montenegro within the MATRA Rule of Law program.
Human Resource Management Administration denied access to interviews
Q&A for key state administration positions are still secret
The Human Resources Management Administration (HRMA) refused access to the written records of interviews conducted for key management positions in the state administration, under the pretext that they are not compiled, even though we were previously informed otherwise.
The Institute Alternative requested an insight into the written records of interviews conducted with applicants for positions of heads of bodies and senior management personnel in the period from September 1st through December 31st 2022. We filed the Freedom of Information (FoI) request after the previous acting director of HRMA claimed that these records are kept with the approval of applicants in public competitions, which is in line with our earlier recommendations. Former acting director made such claims during our Forum on the fight against corruption and political clientelism during public sector recruitment, in December 2022.
For years now we have been pointing out that the external oversight of recruitment in the state administration is hampered, since the HRMA did not provide insight into complete copies of tests and interview records, but only to scarce testing reports, which do not present specific questions and answers of candidates during the interviews. That is why we welcomed the decision to implement the practice of making written records as it creates better conditions for the protection of candidates’ rights. Only they can prove unequal treatment and omissions when procedures are challenged through potential appeals and court proceedings.
However, the HRMA rejected our FoI request as unfounded. It claims that it does not have such documentation, despite the contrary sayings of the previous acting director, who publicly said in December 2022 that this novelty had been introduced. At our Forum, in December 2022, former acting director stated that “after each testing of a candidate from the category of senior managerial staff or head of the body, records are kept in the presence of an authorised recorder hired by the court, and where each candidate has the opportunity to dictate and record his answer, and at last, he has the obligation to sign that record, whether he agrees with it or not.”
That’s why, in addition to the appeal to the competent Agency for Personal Data Protection and Free Access to Information, we also requested from the Administrative Inspectorate to control office operations in order to determine whether the HRMA has the requested records. Along with the initiative and appeal, a link with a recorded speech of the former acting director, where he claimed that records do exist, was also submitted. Given that the Administrative Inspectorate did not respond to the initiative sent almost a month ago, on March 15, we turned to this body with urgency to carry out the requested inspection.
We appeal to the current management of the HRMA to ensure full transparency of recruitment procedures in the state administration in accordance with the current legal framework, especially bearing in mind that this area is recognised as particularly risky for undue interference, especially politicisation and corruption. According to the findings of the Institute Alternative, which are presented in detail on the special website https://mapa-rizika.me, the state authorities, for which the HRMA is responsible, fulfil only less than a fifth of the basic prerequisites for reducing undue interference and corruption when planning and implementing recruitment procedures and protection of the rights of candidates.
Milena Muk
Institute Alternative
Draft amendment to the Law on Free Access to Information introduces unjustified exceptions
We urge that all intelligence and security data not be exempt from the application of the Law on Free Access to Information, as well as that the provisions according to which former public officials are not subject to exceptions to privacy protection and tax secret protection be reinstated.
Draft Law on Free Access to Information established by the Government on March 7, 2023 contains important negative differences compared to the previous draft, which was withdrawn from the parliamentary procedure upon forming of the 43rd Government. Namely, the draft exempts from the application of the Law an information that represents intelligence and security data that is collected, processed, used, exchanged, stored and protected in accordance with the laws that regulate the work of the bodies that make up the intelligence and security sector.
In addition, all persons that had a status of a public official since the introduction of the legally prescribed obligation to submit reports on income and property in connection with the exercise of public office, as well as income, property and conflict of interest of those persons or persons related to them, regardless of whether they are members of a joint household, are exempt from restriction of access to information due to the protection of personal data and the protection of tax secrecy. Previous version of the Law contained this provision which is now replaced in a manner that restrictions to the access to information do not refer only to current public official and persons for whom public officials are due to submit report on income and property.
These provisions can significantly foil some positive novelties in the draft Law, which relate to a greater volume of proactive publishing of information, especially those concerning the budget implementation, the obligation to create a catalogue of authorities – reporting entities to the Law, and a number of other decisions that are product of the efforts of civil society organizations, which submit the largest number of requests for free access to information.
Absolute exemption of the intelligence and security sector data from the application of the Law has no justified basis, especially considering that in the second article, the possibility is left for an authority to restrict access to information or part thereof, “after carrying out the harm test and public interest test, if it is in the interest of security , defence, foreign, monetary and economic policy of Montenegro, which is marked with the appropriate level of secrecy in accordance with the laws regulating the field of data secrecy”.
We also remind the Government that the public debate on the draft amendments to the Law on Free Access to Information, established by the 42nd Government of Zdravko Krivokapić, was held in June 2021, thus, nearly two years ago. In the meantime, the Government did not submit the revised draft for public consultation, and it did not offer an explanation why these important amendments, which the European Commission insists on, were “on hold” for so long, and according to the earlier version of the draft law, their implementation was supposed to start in January 2023. According to the new draft law, its implementation will begin six months after its entry into force, which further extends the deadlines.
For this reason, we urge the Government to abolish important negative differences compared to the previous draft law, which was withdrawn from the parliamentary procedure, and which to a greater extent acknowledged the arguments of NGOs that took part in the previously held public debate.
Stevo Muk
President of the Managing Board of Institute Alternative
Vanja Ćalović Marković
Director of the Network for Affirmation of NGO Sector
Potentials of Early Integration of Montenegro Into the EU Gender Equality Framework
The European Commission created a revised methodology that provides Montenegro with a window for early or accelerated integration that implies gradual introduction to individual policies of the European Union, European Union markets, and its programmes. This model is accompanied with the provision of increased funding through the Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance, in order to provide more intensive support in the accession process.
Early integration into the structures of the European Union is currently most visible in areas where we share common challenges, such as the fight against organised crime or border management. However, it is important for citizens that not only problems, but also benefits are the subject of early integration of Montenegro into the EU. Bearing the above in mind, this analysis focuses on the potential of early integration of Montenegro into the institutional framework for gender equality and gender mainstreaming of the European Union, with the aim of mapping institutions and programmes that Montenegro could take part in during the accession process.
In the analysis, we mapped nearly 20 expert and advisory bodies, as well as programmes at the EU level, in which Montenegro can express its interest to participate. For the purposes of this paper, we define early integration as the country’s potential to access the institutions, networks and working groups of the European Union for gender equality in the capacity of an observer or a full member, and to use the existing programmes to the full extent possible, even in the pre-accession period, i.e. before conventional membership.