News
Stevo Muk applied for membership in the Prosecutorial Council
Stevo Muk, President of the Managing Board at Institute Alternative, submitted an application for membership in the Prosecutorial Council, following the public call issued by the Parliament of Montenegro in accordance with the Law on State Prosecution. “We have been pointing out for years that the state prosecution is the key for fighting organised crime…
Ideas for Transformation of the EU Enlargement to the WB
The European Union (EU) is tired of enlargement and the citizens of the region are tired of waiting for the benefits of EU integration. It is obvious that the existing approach does not yield results and that fresh ideas are needed. In order to contribute to the new dynamics of EU enlargement to the Western…
For Free Access to Information without Excuses
In our comments on the Draft Law on Free Access to Information we pointed out that certain provisions, imprecisely determined restrictions such as trade secret or protection of intellectual property, as well as unclear dynamics of proactively publishing of information of public importance, can thwart deviation from previous bad implementation of this act. Institute Alternative…
Models for improving the system of prevention of conflicts of interest in public procurement
Prevention plays significant role in the system of prevention of conflict of interest in public procurement, and is reflected in the prevention of the conclusion of public procurement contracts that involve conflict of interest. Montenegrin Public Procurement Law requires the contracting authorities to sign conflict of interest declarations ahead of a public procurement procedure, or…
Accountable public finances, Public administration reform
Database networking is key to preventing conflicts of interest in public procurement
Podgorica, PR Press Service– The system of prevention and prosecuting conflicts of interest in public procurement can be improved through preventive and repressive actions. It is necessary to network the system, avoiding to put all the pressure on one institution, and for the public to have a control role it is necessary to improve transparency.…
Accountable public finances, Public administration reform
The Ministry of Interior spent milions of euros over the plan
Institute Alternative’s analysis on implementation of the new Public Procurement Law The Royal Capital of Cetinje amended its 2020 Public Procurement Plan as many as 18 times and the Municipality of Ulcinj executed only 7% of its public procurement budget in 2019. Those are just some of the examples of poor planning that Institute Alternative…
Accountable public finances, Public administration reform
Initiative: Increase Transparency of the Government’s work
It will soon be a month since we wrote to the Government and called for greater transparency in the work through three concrete steps regarding the availability of information on the work and decision-making of the Government and its working bodies. We have not yet received the answer or noticed a change in practice. It…
What has the new Public Procurement Law brought us?
The new Law on Public Procurement has brought obligations and more work to contracting authorities, has made procedures easier for the bidders and improved transparency and competitiveness of public procurement procedures. This is stated by contracting authorities that participated in the meeting organised by Institute Alternative on the occasion of presenting the preliminary findings on…
Parliamentary program, Public administration reform
Intensify and Improve the Work of Parliamentary Committees
Only two of the 14 parliamentary committees adopted work plans for this year during first quarter, while two committees have not held a single session since their constitution in mid-December last year. According to the information available on the website of the Parliament, only the Committee on International Relations and Emigrants has adopted work plan…
Defence and security procurement’s ID
It is difficult to improve the practice in the Montenegrin public procurement system when the “rules of the game” keep changing. The penultimate day of 2019 brought the new Public Procurement Law (PPL), which introduced a number of new rules, along with a timeline of only six months for the players to master those. The…
Accountable public finances, Public administration reform
Procurement planning did not unfold “according to the plan”
In practice, public procurement planning is meaningless, especially at the local level, by multiple and unexplained changes of public procurement plans, which results in spending slightly more than half of the planned expenditures for these purposes on an annual basis. A large number of contracting authorities are waiting for the Budget Law so that they…
For the Parliament which interferes in its work
We have sent 22 proposals for work plans of the parliamentary committees; we propose discussions on budget execution during the year, more involvement of the Parliament in monitoring and defining reforms and better communication with parliamentary oversight institutions. We have sent proposals to committees for economy, finance and budget, for security and defence, for anticorruption,…