Today, NGO MANS submitted to the Agency for Prevention of Corruption (APC) initiatives to launch the proceedings against Milo Đukanović, Branimir Gvozdenović and Goran Rakočević, all due to the failure to report gift in the form of paid stay in Saint Tropez in France during 2010, paid by Duško Knežević.
Namely, according to the documentation published in the daily newspaper “Dan” during the weekend, also submitted to APC, Knežević paid at least €22 thousand Euro for holiday for him, his friends and their wives, with accompanying contents such as, among other things, a helicopter trip to Nice. On the other hand, current president of the state, Milo Đukanović, who was the Prime Minister at the time, current vice-president of the Parliament of Montenegro, the then Minister of Sustainable Development and Tourism Branimir Gvozdenović, and Goran Rakočević, who was the Ambassador of Montenegro to Croatia during that period, did not report gifts in the form of paid vacation and other services to the former Commission for Prevention of Conflicts of Interest. According to the then applicable law, it was a clear and unequivocal obligation of all public officials.
The activities and competencies of the Commission for Prevention of Conflict of Interest, including verification of the accuracy, truthfulness and completeness of the data provided by public officials in their income and assets reports, according to the current Law on Prevention of Corruption, was taken over by Agency for Prevention of Corruption (APC), headed by Sreten Radonjić.
So far, Radonjić and APC have shown in a number of similar examples that they were not guided by what the law prescribes, but only and exclusively by obedience to Đjukanović, his people, the party and the regime, thus, all similar initiatives were rejected on the grounds that the APC cannot deal with cases which occurred before 2016 when the agency was founded, and the said law came into force.
In this way, the leading anti-corruption body in the country practically exempts from corruption all those who had possibly violated or abused the law before 2016, which is especially problematic, bearing in mind that the accumulation of wealth of public officials happened mostly in the earlier period, when their standard of living visibly and rapidly grew compared to the standard of citizens.
However, in the ruling of February last year, in a proceeding that also concerned the refusal of the APC to deal with things that took place before 2016, the Administrative Court clearly established that the agency took over the affairs and competencies of the commission, which means that its competencies imply the “earlier work” of public officials as well.
On this occasion, we urge APC and its director Radonjić to show at least minimum of personal and professional integrity and act on these as well as previous initiatives, for which they have clearly defined legal authorities.
Lazar Grdinić
MANS
