Just before announcing the parliamentary elections in Montenegro the Municipality of Bar paid the Centre for Social Work from that town a total amount of €2,300. The sum was subsequently distributed to 46 persons in the amounts of €50 as a one-time cash payment.
At the end of June 2016, on the basis on the information on making one-time cash payments, which the Center for Social Work delivered to the Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare, the Municipality of Bar submitted a request for making one-time cash payments to 47 persons in the amount of €50, which is a total of € 2,350.
This payment was approved, and in July 2016 a month which marked the beginning of the election campaign, the Centre for Social Work began paying the social assistance. Meanwhile, a welfare beneficiary died, so one of the 50-euro payments was withdrawn.
All individual payments are shown on the website of the Bar-based Center for Social Work[3], within the reports on one-time cash payments which have been made.
However, it is unclear why the Municipality of Bar asked for paying social assistance through the Center for Social Work, given that it has its Secretariat for Social Welfare which has its own budget and also pays cash benefits to socially vulnerable citizens. In addition, the amounts of cash benefits depend on each specific requirement of beneficiaries, and it is more than obvious why each payment amounted to €50.
Based on the Law on Free Access to Information, MANS requested from the Centre for Social Work from Bar to submit all decisions on the granted aid, but by the end of November 2016, these requirements have not been approved.
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