The Director of the Real Estate Administration did not inform the Agency for Prevention of Corruption that his son, who is still a member of his household, had bought a luxury Mercedes, and claims that he did that in a regular report.
Dragan Kovačević, director of the Real Estate Administration of Montenegro, did not report to the Agency for Prevention of Corruption (APC) an expensive Mercedes car, bought by his youngest son Vladan at the beginning of last year, according to the documentation obtained by the Investigative Centre of the Network for Affirmation of NGO Sector (MANS).
Kovačević had to fulfil this obligation in accordance with the provisions of the Law on Prevention of Corruption, since Vladan, although adult, is still listed as a member of his household.
Dragan Kovačević claims that his son earned money for the car himself, and he did that abroad.
Luxurious Grey Metallic Mercedes-Benz CLA Class CLA 220 CDI was bought in March last year in the salon of used car “Kramar”. The documentation shows that this car, produced in 2013, cost Kovačević Jr. exactly €21 thousand.
Considering that Kovačević Jr. is still listed as a member of the household of Dragan Kovačević, the first man of the Real Estate Administration is obliged to report the income and property of his son.
In the latest property card of Kovačević, referring to 2017, Vladan Kovačević is listed as an unemployed person, without any income and property.
Asked where the youngest Kovačević got the money for the purchase of the luxury Mercedes, Dragan Kovačević said that “money for the car, Mercedes CLA 220 CDI, 2013, owned by my son, Vladan Kovačević, was acquired (partly) by six-month work abroad – in the United States of America, Chicago – where he simultaneously performed two duties in one day.”
Car model bought by Kovačević Jr.
“My son worked two jobs, 16 hours a day until the conditions for decent savings were met, after which he returned to Montenegro,” Dragan Kovačević told MANS Investigative Centre, adding that the second part of the money for the purchase of Mercedes was provided by his family as a gift after graduation from the Faculty of Economics. The income that Kovačević Jr. earned by hard work in Chicago was also not recorded in his father’s property card for 2017, although there was a legal obligation.
According to the Law on Prevention of Corruption, as a public official, Dragan Kovačević was obliged to report within a month the increase in the assets of his family member in the amount of more than five thousand Euros.
Nevertheless, Kovačević claims that “bearing in mind the fact that my son Vladan Kovačević was not staying and was not employed in Montenegro in 2017, I notify the Agency in a timely manner for the acquired property of this family member for the year in which he is employed.” Kovačević also states in his response that since January last year, his son was employed as a manager for retail and corporate banking in Prva Banka. Kovaćević’s property card for 2018 has not yet been published on APC’s website.
Several criminal complaints against the head of the Real Estate Administration
Dragan Kovačević has been the first man of the land registry since 2012, and his work and engagement in the position of public official was followed by many controversies, whether it was the assessment of the value of the state land from an expert position, or the property that he and his family acquired over the years, and for which officially reported revenues were not sufficient. For all this, NGO MANS alone has filed several criminal complaints against Kovačević, while the Agency for Prevention of Corruption has already refused to deal with the origin of his family’s property.
Lazar Grdinić
MANS Investigative Centre
