During the first month and a half after the parliamentary elections were called, is apparent that institutions at the central and the local level have been violating the Law on Financing of Political Entities and Election Campaigns, as they still fail to publish the information they are obliged by the law – statements of account, mileage logs and treasury statements.
The monitoring conducted by MANS includes over 100 entities which are legally bound by the Law on Financing of Political Entities and Election Campaigns at the central and the local level, which means the institutions of all three branches of power, all Montenegrin municipalities, as well as the most significant state-owned and public-owned companies. The analysis shows that only one third of the documents have been published appropriately, more than a half have been published partially, which means they do not include all the necessary information, while the rest has not published anything.
Furthermore, the analysis shows that the institutions have not published 20 percent of the statements of account, though they were obliged to do so according to the law, while in 40 percent of the cases the published statements were not complete, which means that some of the key data were missing – the purpose of payment or the information on how the payments had been made. Thus, the institutions have de facto hidden from the public the information on the budget expenditures during the pre-election campaign and who was receiving that money. The rest of the statements of account were published in accordance with the law, whereas a significant number of those statements was adequately published only after MANS had filed complaints to the Agency for Prevention of Corruption.
As for the mileage logs, nearly 10 percent have not been published at all at the institutions’ websites, while from the total number of the published ones, nearly two thirds do not contain all the data on the movement of vehicles nor the fuel consumption. Thus, not only the law has been broken, but also the government’s rulebook which defines the form of the mileage log. The rest of the mileage logs has been adequately published, but just like some of the statements of account, only after MANS filed complaints to the Agency.
The situation is even worse with the statements of the state and local treasuries, which, according to the law, should be published by the Ministry of Finances and relevant municipal secretariats. Namely, almost 90 percent of the published statements do not contain complete information and are lacking the purpose of payments, while in some cases there is no information on who are the receivers of such payments.
When it comes to data on budget reserve expenses, as well as welfare payments at the state and the local levels, the situation is better. Over 80 percent of the documents has been published adequately and they contain relevant information on public funds expenditures. The rest has either not been published at all, or has been published in such manner that it does not provide the complete information on how the funds were spent.
All the violations of the Law on Financing of Political Entities and Election Campaigns that we identified in the past month and a half have been reported to the Agency for Prevention of Corruption, so the total number of the filed complaints is 1,200 at the moment. However, despite the fact that the complaints were filed the end of July 2016, MANS has not received any decisions made on the subject of the filed complaints.
Due to the poor legal provisions, the deadline within which the Agency has to decide n submitted complaints is two months, there is no single reason why the decision-making should wait until the last minute, especially due to Agency’s claim that it has sufficient capacities and that the monitoring of pre-election abuses is handled by dozens of its officials. Each of the submitted complaints over the violation of the Law on Financing of Political Entities and Election Campaigns must be the absolute priority, when it comes to proceedings and decision-making of the Agency, as such decision-making serves to prevent further illegal acts.
Therefore, if the Agency continues to prolong the proceedings, most of its decisions will be made after the elections are finished, which would make the Agency’s proceedings irrelevant, as pre-election abuses cannot be prevented in such manner.
All the complaints that MANS filed to the Agency for Prevention of Corruption are available on MANS’s website (http://www.mans.co.me/predizborna-potrosnja-budzeta/). The website also contains over 1,500 documents published by over 100 institutions during the first month and half after the elections were called.
MANS
