The Ministry of Interior (MoI) has demonstrated that it is unwilling to operate in accordance with the public procurement system established by Montenegro. -This is shown by the information on the adoption of the Financing Agreement between UNDP and the Ministry of Interior for providing operational support to this ministry during the 2025–2027 period, which was adopted by the Government yesterday.
Due to its inability to fully implement the tender for the procurement of police uniforms, UNDP will carry out this procurement instead of the Ministry, based on this agreement. In other words, instead of the Ministry conducting the tender procedure and procuring police uniforms through the public procurement system, the funds from Montenegro’s state budget (€4.43 million) will be transferred to UNDP, which will carry out the procurement according to its own procedures. The issue is not the procurement of uniforms itself, but the fact that this approach bypasses the law regulating public procurement in Montenegro. This time, it was done by the Ministry of Interior, opening the door for this to become a practice for other institutions and bodies as well.
We remind that Chapter 5 (Public Procurement) has been provisionally closed, and that the position paper between Montenegro and the EU clearly emphasises that “it remains essential not to circumvent the application of national legislation and the EU acquis on public procurement, and to uphold the principles of non-discrimination, fair competition, equal treatment of companies, and transparency of public procurement procedures.”