(Podgorica, 5 June 2013) – The Agency for the Protection of Personal Information rejected MANS’ filing of a freedom of information request, in which we demanded that the Podgorica Aluminum Combine (KAP) give us access to basic information about its business dealings. As a result of the Agency’s refusal we will be filling a complaint against it with the Administrative Court.
year, following the entry into law of the new Law on Free Access to Information, MANS has submitted over 100 requests to KAP’s leadership, requesting a series of documents concenring the company’s financial and business dealings.
The new Law on Free Access to Information, allows requests to be directed towards business enterprises and other legal entities whose founder, co-founder or majority owner is the state or local government (or whose work is being financed for the most part out of public moneys).
The leadership of KAP didn’t respond to a single request placed by MANS, hiding the documentation about its business dealings. This is why we submitted a complaint to the Agency for the Protection of Personal Information, as the relevant institution that should rule on the issues raised.
However, the Agency rejected our complaints as baseless arguing that there is no proof that the company is being financed from the public budget.
In other words, the Agency – headed by Council President Šefko Crnovršanin and director Bojan Obrenović – seems to be the only entity in the state that isn’t aware that the government has pumped hundreds of millions of euros into the KAP in recent years.
Because of the subsidies, the state budget is near collapse. As a result after introducing the ‘euro for euro’ crisis tax and cutting social assistance, it is now in the process of hiking the VAT from 17% to 19%. This last measure promises to result in an increase of prices for services, as well as electricity, fuel, health and other costs related to other basic needs.
The heads of the Agency seem not to be aware that the KAP has been wasting electricity for months, which in the end all of Montenegro’s citizens will have to pay for. On the other hand further state indebtedness is being projected worth hundreds of millions of euros, including the reprogramming of existing credits.
MANS would like to repeat, though its something that an Agency for the Protection of Personal Information should already know, that it is in the public interests that all information concerning the business dealings of the country’s largest factory and exporter in the past decade be revealed. This is especially relevant given the fact that Montenegro’s citizens have till now subsidized hundreds of millions worth of debts from the Russian owners.
The latest imposition is the government’s decision to increase the VAT, which will be debated by the Parliamentary Committee for Economics and Finances next Monday. MANS has requested that the President of that parliamentary body grant us access to the session.
In the end, it is clear that there exists space for the government’s budgetary deficit to be filled by ensuring the payment of corporate taxes, concessions, instead of pushing to place the burden of debts resulting from the government’s catastrophic policy towards the KAP be once again displaced upon the country’s impoverished citizens.
