The Employment Agency of Montenegro (EAM) continued the practice of gross violation of law and without the consent of the State Aid Control Commission has recently launched three employment programs, €750,000 worth. The implementation period substantially coincides with the time when it is expected that new parliamentary elections will be called, shows the documentation that MANS Investigation Center has come into possession of.
The focus of the employment through these programs is focused in the northern region, where poverty and unemployment are most visible. Having in mind that the EAM will get new funds for employment from the budget early next year, it is clear that it will be able to prolong the working engagements to employees under the programs that are being implemented. There is a reasonable doubt that, through the party the employment, the government has already started gaining advantage in the field in favor of the ruling party.
According to official data, the Agency launched six employment programs in February this year. However, in late September, it started new programs, for three of which it sought the approval of the State Aid Control Commission. The value of those three programs, which should provide for the employment of 800 persons with a university or a vocational high school diploma, is €750,000.
It is not known what sources provided the money for new programs, or documentation MANS Investigation Center has shown that the EAM grossly violated the Law on State Aid Control, as the public calls for proposals was published on 23 September, while the State Aid Control Commission confirmed that the programs comply with the legal regulations governing the state aid on 13 October, or 15 days later.
Thus, through the program entitled “Training for independent work”, the Agency plans to employ 100 persons with high or secondary education for a period of nine and six months. The allocated amount is €250,000. Another program is called “Training for work with an employer”. It will cost €450,000 and will enable that 350 persons get jobs over a period of at least three months.
What is particularly interesting is that a program to stimulate employment, “The Youth in Winter Tourism”, has been designed for the first time. Unlike the previous years, when the Agency funded seasonal employment during the summer tourist season, this time be employers from the north and less developed municipalities will get subsidies, a program is designed for young people of up to 24.
It is also indicative that the Agency has initiated this program, although there is no accurate record of how many persons could be employed. The documentation it submitted to the State Aid Control Commission shows an estimation that the implementation of employment programs for young people in winter tourism will take €50,000 and it should employ 250 to 350 persons.
Keeping all the above in mind, particularly the fact that the projects are focused on employment in the northern region, as well as the time of the public call, which is at least at an unusual time, there is a clear doubt that the EAM programs have been launched to acquire votes in the field.
MANS Investigation Center previously uncovered a scheme that the Montenegrin government used for short-term employment, mostly of socially vulnerable persons, through EAM programs, which are typically implemented ahead of the elections. A former director of the EAM and one of the protagonists of the “Tape Recording” affair, Zoran Jelic, once said that an employee brings four votes to the ruling party. The EAM is headed by his wife, Vukica Jelic.
Short-term employment ahead of elections
In addition to the three employment programs for which the Agency he sought the approval of the State Aid Control Commission, in September this year, the EAM launched a pilot program called “Activation of beneficiaries of family material support”, which would provide short-term employment for 250 individuals.
The planned funds for this pilot project are €50,000, and it will be implemented in the northern, less developed municipalities – Bijelo Polje, Mojkovac, Berane, Andrijevica, Plav, Rozaje, Petnjica, Gusinje, Pljevlja, Zabljak, Pluzine, Savnik, Kolasin, Niksic, Danilovgrad, Ulcinj and Cetinje.
Moreover, in September, the EAM announced 200 vacancies on the basis of so-called public works, also dominantly in the northern municipalities, for which it provided €200,000.
MANS Investigation Center has previously stated that the public works program is an ideal model for misuse of state funds for electoral purposes. It is officially implemented in order to employ so-called “less employable persons” such as users of social welfare and financial assistance, RAE population or persons with disabilities, on a short-term basis.
Agency is bothered with the texts in DAN
The EAM has continued the practice of gross violation of the Law on Free Access to Information, refusing to submit to MANS the information requested on the basis of that law, all under the excuse that such information end up published in the daily Dan.
Despite a number of requests for access to information that MANS Investigation Center continuously submits to the EAM with regard to various employment programs, MANS has also requested that the decision by which the Agency approved the sale of its shares in the Institute Simo Milosevic. That request was also rejected with the explanation that MANS had earlier published the given answers in the daily Dan.
The EAM has ceased to submit documentation to MANS when two years ago, we published for the first time a series of articles that exposed schemes of how employment programs had been misused for electoral purposes, and that the money from the state budget had been used for hiring seasonal workers in companies owned by those associated with the criminal milieu and Montenegrin security services, such as “Maestralturs” from Budva and Imanje Rakocevic in Mojkovac.
This text is created with the support of the European Union within the project “Zero Tolerance to Corruption”. Network for Affirmation of Non-Governmental Sector – MANS is solely responsible for the contents of this article, and the views taken herein shall not in any case be considered as those of the European Union.
