Over the past week, the institutions kept following the bad practice of not publishing complete statements of accounts and mileage logs on their websites, thus violating anew the Law on Financing Political Parties and Election Campaigns.
For example, nearly 70 institutions which work was monitored during the week behind us, did not adequately published 60 percent of the documentation, which they were bound to publish, since they removed the key information from it which could indicate the possible abuse of public funds for party purposes.
Thus, the published analytical cards, in many cases, lack payment purpose as a key piece of information on the basis of which the legality of spending state money is established.
The most illustrative example of a completely inadequate statement of accounts is the one published by the Ministry of Information Society and Telecommunications, according to which the only conclusion that could be drawn is the total sum of money spent during the week. On the other hand, the Ministry’s expenditures on a weekly basis are known to go up to almost €200,000, so it is absolutely unacceptable that the public is not informed where the state money of this institution is directed to and for which purposes.
The bad practice of publishing inadequate statements of accounts has been followed by the Ministry of Economy and Ministry of Transport and Maritime Affairs, which, unlike the Ministry of Information Society and Telecommunications, has been publishing the information on the parties into which accounts the money was paid, but there is no any information about the payment purpose, so the reason for spending a certain amount of funds remains unknown. Similar statements of accounts, containing no details about the purpose of payment, have been published by the State Election Commission.
When it comes to mileage logs, in most cases, the institutions still do not publish information on official vehicles’ fuel consumption, and certain institutions go so far as not having a record of a vehicle route, the time and purpose. Such is the situation with the social welfare centers in Bijelo Polje, Mojkovac and Kolasin, which do not possess information on fuel consumption, nor the abovementioned records, which violates not only the Law on Financing Political Parties and Election Campaigns, but also the Rulebook of the Government of Montenegro, which defines mileage logs’ forms and methods of keeping their records.
MANS filed to the Agency for Prevention of Corruption nearly 90 complaints related to all violations of the Law on Financing Political Parties and Election Campaigns which were identified during the previous week. This way, from the calling of elections until today, a number of complaints MANS filed to the Agency related to violations of the Law on Financing Political Parties and Election Campaigns committed by institutions has risen to nearly 600.
Still, even though the Agency has not acted on a single complaint filed from the calling of elections so far, a small number of institutions have started making progress in this sense and adequately publishing information which was previously not available to the public. However, in general, the percentage of information that institutions have published adequately at the national level is still very low and amounts only one-third.
Such violations of the Law on Financing Political Parties and Election Campaigns by the institutions, related to their obligation to proactively publish data on budget spending, are extremely alarming. In fact, there is only a month and a half until the parliamentary elections and from the available information the public is still not able to see whether there are any abuses of public money and to which extent. Therefore, it is necessary to ensure that all the institutions apply the law and publish information so as all potential abuses could be clearly identified.
MANS
