(Podgorica, September 22. 2013.) – MANS sent a letter to the leaders of the Tax Administration and Department of Real Estate which indicates that their unilateral decision to erase the identification numbers from the register of companies and properties that are available on the Internet is a violation of the law that a huge number of people and companies put in a situation of legal uncertainty, while at the same time allows criminals and corrupted politicians to hide money laundering through related companies and illegally gained assets.
A letter was sent on September 5th to Milan Lakicevic, director of the Tax Administration of Montenegro and another letter was sent on September 6th to Dragan Kovacevic, director of the Department of Real Estate and those two institutions until this day have not submitted an answer; instead they are quietly trying to hide the brutal violation of the law.
MANS reminded directors of the Tax Administration and the Department of Real Estate that the law requires from these institutions to provide all citizens access to their records and to make public all information necessary to confirm the real ownership of companies and properties.
The Law on state survey and Real estate cadastre clearly provides that in the Cadastre the identification number data are entered, and the same law stipulates that everyone has the right to inspect the information that could be found in the Real estate cadastre. That law makes it clear that in the cadastre all necessary information must be included, so there is no risk that individuals who own the property are replaced with other individuals.
Therefore, the law guarantees legal certainty and the ability to each person to find out and to be sure about the information from the public register of real estate. Otherwise, if the cadastre contains incomplete information, none of the interested parties can know about any serious violation of law and no one can have complete and reliable data.
The legal basis for the publication of complete information about the owners of the companies is located in the Companies Act, which clearly states how to apply, entry and access the data contained in the Central registry. The same law explains that the data and documentation contained submitted to the registry are contained in the unique database, and that everyone can see it, rewrite or copy it from the registry and submitted documents. Moreover, that law states that access to information can be done via electronic means of communication, including the Internet presentation.
In the Companies Act explicitly is stated that it can not be inconsistency between what is published and what is submitted to the Central registry and, if such inconsistency exists, the published text cannot be considered credible in relation to third parties.
Thus, the cited provisions are intended to provide real security and a possibility for each person to find out and to rely on the information from this public register.
Otherwise, if the register contains incomplete data, none of the persons who establish relation with companies and entrepreneurs can know about any serious violation of the law and no one can have a complete and reliable data submitted by the company to the Central registry. For a person, or the public in general, to rely on the security of the data from the database with those submitted for registration, it is necessary that the information is available for the public in a way that will allow such verification.
Thus the reasoning of the Tax Administration to remove the information based on the record of the Agency for personal data protection is completely pointless since the new director of the Tax Administration should know that the law obliges him for the data disclosure and that he should use all available legal mechanisms before he decided to clear data silently. Possible lack of law understanding by the director of the Tax Administration cannot be justification, but only a recommendation that he is not able to hold a position, and a reference to the alleged EU standards is absolutely not true and represents a clear manipulation. The fact that he silently cleared all data during the holiday shows that he consciously took the right from the third parties that belongs to them by the law, to be informed about the owners of companies and their business partners, and that their companies are not in question, while he protected criminals and corrupted politicians.
Therefore, deleting identification numbers has undermined the public and the reliability of the cadastre and the Central business registry and at the same time contradicts with the provisions of the Law on state survey and Real estate cadastre as well as the Law on business organisations, which requires that all data on properties and companies are public and available to all interested parties. This is especially important for the fact that in Montenegro there are thousands of people with the same first and last name, and if there is no possibility to see the identification number or some other unique characteristic, it is impossible with certainty to determine about the parties.
Moreover, the interests of individuals whose information are contained in the Real estate cadastre and the Registry of the companies are that their publication enables liability in the protection of their rights and to establish business and professional relationship with others, except in cases of persons who violate the law.
Deleting identification numbers from the register of the companies and real estate can bring many honest citizens to the point that their companies and assets are under the shadow of a doubt just because they have the same name as a fugitive drug lord, a corrupt politician, intelligence officer or criminal.
For example, in Montenegro there are two Safet Kalic with different identification numbers, and hiding that data also prevents the investigation of the companies and assets of the person suspected to be one of the biggest drug lord in the Balkans.
A similar situation happened in the case of late Dragan Dudic, so in Kotor only there were two people with the same name, but with different identification number, and only one of them was Fric, Saric’s longtime companion, while the assets and property of the other citizen with the same name that has nothing with smuggling cocaine could be brought into question, if identification numbers were not known.
Thanks to identification numbers from the Central register of companies, MANS was successful in detecting the case Kalamper in Bar, which involves the former Minister Jusuf Kalamperovic, because in that municipality there are two people with the same name, but with different social security number, that were born just a year apart.
Without identification number it would not have been possible to determine that Vlatko Rakocevic gained a huge wealth in real estate that he could not earn as the head of the intelligence service in Mojkovac.
These and similar cases guide us to suspicion that corrupted officials who are in connection with organized crime in fact decided that the Tax Administration and the Real estate administration conceal the information necessary to detect cases of corruption. This is corroborated with the fact that the directors of the two institutions have been silent for days about that even though they know that when they deleted social security numbers from their web sites they brutally violated several articles of the law and they brought into legal uncertainty a huge number of citizens and companies.
We believe that practice like this one is contrary to the requirements of the European Union relating to the conditions for opening chapters 23 and 24, and for that reason we will inform international organizations, first of all the European Commission, as well as the European embassies and members of the European Parliament about this brutal violation of the law and the right to access to information which fits only corrupted officials and criminals.
