Software for State Asset Management was paid for a decade ago but was not developed according to specifications. Hackers allegedly “locked” the Open Data portal, prompting the Ministry of Public Administration to create a third version. The government is also developing a new electronic document management system because the old one does not support upgrades. LARIS, the Local Revenue Administration System, is still not used by all municipalities.
Registry Paid for, Then Abandoned
After nearly 15 years of ignoring regulations, in May last year, an inventory of land and buildings owned by Montenegro was completed, and an electronic database, the State Property Registry, was established. The software for this registry was paid for in 2014, costing nearly 200,000 euros, but the registry is still not functional as originally intended.
The inventory of state property does not yet include information about its value.
The State Property Registry has been a legal obligation established by the State Property Law since 2009. One of the requirements was the acquisition of an integrated information system for unified records of state property, with the goal of having an accurate overview of the status of all assets at any given time, both overall and by individual bodies, and to enable fast and efficient management of accurate and complete data.
For this task, the private company “Atos” from Belgrade, as the only bidder, was engaged following a tender issued in late October 2014. The Belgrade company was paid 199,800 euros for this job, and the deadline for fulfilling the contractual obligations was September 2015.
Koča Đurišić, who was the Director of the Cadastre and State Property Administration, said to “Vijesti” in March last year that upon taking over the Administration, he found nothing that the law required regarding the registry and that the software from 2014 “never became operational.”
Reports from the State Audit Institution (DRI) show that the system was not established as stipulated in the contract and that the Ministry of Finance did not sign any annexes to the contract after the deadline for fulfilling contractual obligations expired. In the final report on the audit of the management of the State Property Registry from 2023, the DRI noted that “the integrated information system SAP FI-AA module, by the completion of the audit process or June 2023, had not been established as defined in the project description and specification, which are part of the contract, and it was not possible for the Cadastre and State Property Administration and state bodies to operationally use it to the intended extent.”
Activities to improve the functionality of the IT solution for managing state property and the quality of data are planned as part of the Public Finance Management Reform Programme for 2022-2026. For this purpose, 500,000 euros from the Budget are allocated.
Open Data “on Pause” for Nearly Two Years
Over 33,000 euros have been invested since 2017 in the creation and maintenance of the Open Data Portal (data.gov.me), but no new data sets have been published since May 2022.
For various tasks—development, maintenance, and vulnerability analysis of the portal—three contracts were signed, the last one in 2021. However, since May 2022, nothing has happened on the data.gov.me website.
The Ministry of Public Administration has meanwhile announced the development of a new portal and stated that the ministry has expert assistance from Canadian experts hired by the National Democratic Institute (NDI) for this project. While no concrete decision has been made, the ministry mentioned in its response on February 22 that the project is in its initial phase.
“There is no concrete decision regarding the development of the portal because the need for the Open Data Portal arises from a large number of strategic documents that are part of the official policies of the Ministry of Public Administration,” said the Ministry.
The deadline for completing the new portal, they added, is by the end of the fourth quarter of this year.
The first contract, for the establishment of the Open Data Portal, was signed in 2017 with the company “Smart Tech” from Podgorica. The data.gov.me portal was presented in July of the following year.
The contract, valued at 14,042 euros (with VAT), was signed by the Secretary of the Ministry of Public Administration (MJU), Vesna Ćalović.
Two years later, the same firm was hired for the enhancement and maintenance of the portal for 14,497 euros (with VAT). The new contract was signed by the then-minister Suzana Pribilović.
In the documentation provided to the editorial team following a Freedom of Information (FOI) request, there is also a third contract signed in 2021 by the then-Minister of Public Administration, Digital Society, Culture, and Media, Tamara Srzentić, with the firm “Codingo.” The contract, as stated in the documentation, involved vulnerability analysis services for the Open Data Portal, including security improvements and addressing identified vulnerabilities. For this task, the firm “Codingo” was paid 4,501.20 euros (with VAT).
The Ministry, led by Maraš Dukaj in both the current and previous government, stated that this contract was concluded after “CEED Consulting” Ltd. from Podgorica conducted research for the ministry to identify the key deficiencies in the portal’s operation.
“As well as the missing sets of frequently used open data, clearly distinguishing between open data and data and information obtained in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act. Since it was not possible to redesign the portal, a new one was developed within the project, and the new portal was published on May 26, 2022, and configured on the MJU’s production server. It operated until the cyber-attack in late August 2022,” they explained.
However, the last data sets on data.gov.me were published three months before the cyber-attack. The Ministry of Public Administration did not explain what happened during those three months—why there were no new entries from May to August 2022.
According to data shared by the MJU after the cyber-attack, until that critical event, 20 institutions had published 197 data sets in 15 areas on data.gov.me. Although still publicly accessible, the Open Data Portal is non-functional and even offers a user registration option. When asked what this registration is for and how many users have registered, the Ministry of Public Administration briefly replied: “We do not have that information.”
Documents in Paper Still in Effect
For licenses and maintenance of the Electronic Document Management System (eDMS), according to contracts on the public procurement portal (cejn.gov.me), over 678,500 euros have been paid from 2017 through 2022.
These contracts were awarded to firms such as SRC System Integrations from Belgrade, as well as S&T Montenegro, Digit Montenegro, and Čikom from Podgorica.
A new contract was signed with Čikom in October last year, valued at 429,550 euros (including VAT). This contract was for the development and maintenance of the eDMS system, as well as for managing the process of electronic government sessions in Montenegro.
The Electronic Document Exchange System, as mentioned in annual reports from the Ministry of Public Administration and in the Montenegro Digital Transformation Strategy 2022-2026 from December 2021, is one of the key government services aimed at improving business processes by gradually transitioning from paper to electronic document management.
The goal of implementing this system was faster information exchange, reduced paperwork, and increased security in document storage.
The project was initiated by the then Ministry of Information Society and Telecommunications, led by Vujica Lazović, in October 2009, and the eDMS system was established in 2011.
According to the Information on eDMS approved by the Government in December 2023, the system has been implemented in 23 institutions.
The same document also states that the eDMS and the systems for managing electronic government sessions and digital document signing “operate on outdated platforms for which support has expired and which cannot be upgraded.”
“For this reason, new systems will be established, based on the most advanced technologies and in accordance with the best global practices and international standards governing this field and information security,” the document states.
The Government also mentioned in the same report that the establishment of the new system is planned for the first quarter of 2024.
LARIS Useful but Not Mandatory
In 2019, the Association of Municipalities and UNDP began working on the “Efficient and Transparent Local Self-Government” project, which developed LARIS, an integrated local revenue administration system.
UNDP issued a public call for the software development in May 2020, and the job, worth 148,725 euros, was awarded to the company “E Smart” from Serbia.
The Association of Municipalities stated that they engaged in the project “primarily because the State Audit Institution (DRI) had repeatedly pointed out the shortcomings of the municipalities’ software.”
When asked about the number of municipalities using LARIS, they did not provide precise data but stated that most municipalities use the software in full, some use it partially, and a few do not use it at all.
“This is because some municipalities had developed their own software previously. A unified software is not yet a mandatory requirement, but rather a matter of decision for each municipality and adherence to DRI’s recommendations,” they noted in their responses.
The DRI’s 2021 report on the thematic audit “Collection and Recording of Own Revenues in Local Self-Governments” indicated that special software used by some municipalities does not allow for the recording and separation of local public revenues by year and that in some municipalities, the software does not exist at all, with revenues recorded in Word or Excel.
“After reviewing the functionalities of LARIS, the DRI recommended all municipalities to use LARIS to simplify and improve the tax procedure, facilitate communication, and reduce taxpayer costs,” the DRI report states.
The Association of Municipalities said that this recommendation was accepted by some municipalities that had not used LARIS before. For instance, during 2023, the Municipality of Ulcinj became a user, while the Municipality of Bar showed interest in using the most modules.
Questions about whether they use LARIS were sent to all local self-governments. Responses were provided by the municipalities of Bijelo Polje, Cetinje, Rožaje, and Tivat.
Based on the responses, municipalities that use it are satisfied with the software, although they use it in different ways. They also mention that the software allows for networking with other public registries, which is important for calculating local revenues.
Tivat Offers Online Tax Payments
Among the municipalities using LARIS that provided a response, only Tivat offers citizens the option to pay services online.
“It is possible to pay property tax, tourist tax, and road fees online, but this does not rely on the LARIS programme. We will attempt to improve the online payment system in cooperation with LARIS in the future,” said the Municipality of Tivat.
The Municipality of Bijelo Polje stated that there is no interest from citizens for online payments.
“As for online payments, we do not practice them yet due to the lack of interest from citizens, as they prefer to make payments at our cash desk or with field workers responsible for collections,” said the Bijelo Polje Municipality.
The Municipality of Cetinje mentioned that online payment would be desirable and that it would be beneficial to connect the system with the electronic personal ID card (eLK) issued by the Ministry of the Interior for the past three years.
The Capital City did not respond to questions about the use of the LARIS system. A review of the platform, after login, shows that the online payment button exists but is not functional.
In the Information on the status of the project “eServices and Digital Infrastructure as a Response to COVID-19,” which was adopted by the Government on December 21 last year, it is mentioned that online property tax payment with the Capital City has been halted “until certain challenges arising from organisational changes at both local and central levels are overcome.”
Additionally, through the LARIS system of the Capital City, although the option exists for property tax, an electronic version of the solution cannot be obtained.
An electronic version of the solution can be obtained upon request via email.
For various activities carried out under the project “eServices and Digital Infrastructure as a Response to COVID-19,” the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Montenegro, with the support of the European Union, allocated about 824,000 dollars over three years.
The project started in January 2021 and will end at the end of this year. By the end of last year, 622,880 dollars had been spent.
According to data from the UNDP Montenegro website, 92,875 euros were paid in 2021 for consulting services from CEED, which conducted the analysis of the Open Data Portal.
This investigative article was produced within the Project “Procurement under spotlight – Making Watchdogs Work!”, with the support of the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Serbia and Montenegro within the MATRA Rule of Law program. Project aims to empower and motivate watchdogs to combat corruption and undue influence in public procurement.
