Information about the alleged trip of the Prime Minister Duško Marković with his associates to Palma de Mallorca was disclosed to the Montenegrin public only when MANS publicly asked the question what was the state aircraft doing on that Spanish island and what was the purpose of that trip.
On the day of the trip to Spain, a sitting of the Government was held, but it was not mentioned that Marković would travel to Palma de Mallorca that evening. An insight into the agenda of the previous sittings showed no announcement of the trip, or that the Montenegrin delegation prepared the so-called “platform of the official meeting”, as is usually the case. Also, even upon Marković’s return, there was no official announcement of what was said in the alleged business meetings in Spain. In the archive of the events related to the work of the Prime Minister, all activities in September 2018 are listed, except for the trip to Palma de Mallorca. The same thing is with the Minister of Culture, Aleksandar Bogdanović, for whom there is also no publicly available information that he was part of that delegation, or what he did there.
Since the Public Relations Office of the Government of Montenegro did not issue an official statement on this, the media also did not report that Marković was visiting Iberostar from Spain in September 2018.
The Public Relations Office of the Government of Montenegro stated that Marković talked with representatives of Iberostar in Mallorca about new investments in Montenegro’s tourism and culture, but for half a year, the public has no information as to what was agreed at that meeting.
Hiding the information that the Prime Minister Marković was at Mallorca, and the fact that the costs were covered by the private company Iberostar, leaves a doubt as to whether it was an official or a private visit after all.
In recent weeks, we have had the opportunity to see that Marković’s predecessor, current President of the State Milo Đukanović, also “promoted” Montenegrin tourism on other people’s expense in the past years, which further raises the question why was Marković’s trip to Spain hidden from the public.
Of course, having in mind the fact that we learned about this trip half a year later, and that the government obviously concealed this information, the question arises where else have the Prime Minister and members of his Government travelled, whom they met and what was agreed in those meetings. These data should not be a state secret pursuant to the Law on Free Access to Information, as citizens have the right to know in what way is spent over € 700,000 allocated per year for the state aircraft.
If the Government has no problem with publishing data for this flight, we believe that there is no obstacle for the public to also get acquainted with other flights of the state aircraft that are still hidden.
We remind that at the beginning of February, by using the Law on Free Access to Information, MANS requested information from the Government in what way the state aircraft was used and where it was flying, and that we have not received this information to date. In addition, a few weeks ago, we sent concrete questions to both the General Secretariat and the Public Relations Service and its head, Srđan Kusovac, but they refused to provide information on the aircraft’s flight to Mallorca.
It is apparent that the intention was to hide this trip from the public, because the Government had enough time to respond to a simple question by MANS.
We expect the Prime Minister Marković to inform the Montenegrin public in detail about his official duties in Mallorca and announce the price of his visit to that Spanish island paid by Iberostar. If, however, it was something else, we remind him that he is obliged to report the trip to Spain as a gift of Iberostar to the competent authorities.
When it comes to the unplanned servicing of the state aircraft in Malta, it is also unclear why this information was hidden from the public if it is a normal maintenance procedure for that aircraft. What is still unknown is how much this service cost citizens of Montenegro, and in what procedure this precise Maltese company was chosen to service the state aircraft.
Dejan Milovac
Director of the Investigative Centre
MANS
