Last year, as many as 59 national and local institutions grossly violated the Law on Public Procurement, by abusing the direct contracting model, which represents a direct agreement with the bidder and is implemented for procurements of the estimated value of up to €5,000, show the official data analyzed by MANS Investigation Center.
According to the Public Procurement Administration’s report on implemented public procurement in the last year, the total value of direct contracts concluded by those 59 institutions is over seven million, which makes a vast space for abuse by irrational spending of the state money.
The list of institutions that have violated the law includes some of the ministries, government agencies, a number of state and municipal public companies, primarily utilities, then town hospitals or health centers, as well as the Supreme State Prosecutor’s Office, which is in charge of acting upon complaints, where there is a doubt of the malfeasance of office.
The allowed limit for direct contracts range from seven to ten percent, depending on the total annual that a contracting authority spends for public procurement. The report of the Public Procurement Administration shows that some institutions have drastically violated the legal restriction.
Thus, last year, the Agency for Electronic Media carried out direct contracts in the amount of 80 percent of its total budget, which was approximately €138,000. Insurance Supervision Agency spent over €76,000, which is 70 percent of its overall budget, which is €111,000.
The Public Procurement Administration has revealed that the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Culture also spent on direct contracting more than what was allowed. Thus, the Ministry of Labor spent 58 percent of the total budget, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs spent 33 percent, whereas the Ministry of Culture spent 28 percent.
MANS Investigation Center has previously found that the Ministry of Agriculture and the General Secretariat of the Government of Montenegro also implemented illegal public procurement during last year. Therefore, MANS has recently filed criminal charges against the leaders of these institutions on suspicion of malfeasance of office and negligent performance of official duties.
Among the violators of the law that found place in the report presented by the Public Procurement Administration, there is a number of public enterprises, from the Administration for Housing Development and Parking Service in Podgorica, through “Cistoca” in Pljevlja, to a number of municipal utilities – in Ulcinj, Danilovgrad, Cetinje, Herceg Novi, Kotor and Tivat.
Municipalities of Bar, Danilovgrad, Niksic, Pljevlja, Zabljak and Cetinje also illegally implemented direct contracting last year.
The Center for Social Work in Podgorica, for instance, spent 85 percent of the planned budget on direct contracts.
What is particularly incredible is that the Supreme State Prosecutor’s Office has also violated the law. Thus, last year, it spent as much as 48 percent of the money provided for public procurement through direct negotiations.
State authorities are obliged to provide an economical and rational use of public funds, and the above examples show how relentlessly the institutions spend citizens’ moneys, while at the same time they introduce a set of anti-crisis measures, such as payroll taxes, the VAT increase, or freezing pensions.
SAI also violated the law
The State Audit Institution has repeatedly indicated in their reports that the model of direct contracting is the most abused one and recommended spending units to ensure that the annual volume of public procurements carried out through direct contacting does not exceed the statutory limit.
However, despite the recommendation, the very State Audit Institution exceeded the limit in the last year, realizing 43 percent of the total consumption through direct contracting.
In addition, the Parliament of Montenegro and the Secretariat of the Judicial Council also crossed the limit allowed in the previous year.
MANS published last year a number of examples of illegal spending of public money by institutions such as the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Economy and the Customs Administration. There was no reaction by the appropriate state authorities.
Implausible plans
The report of the Public Procurement Administration shows that a certain number of institutions had a huge difference between the planned and contracted value of public procurements in the last year.
Some illustrative examples are those of the Ministry of Transport, which planned the amount of €80 million, but contracted only €5 million, or the Ministry of Tourism with the plan of €90 million and the contracted value of €23 million, as well as the Ministry of Interior, which planned public procurement of €11 million and contracted only €5 million.
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.
