Since the beginning of this year, the Maritime Safety Department Bar has spent over € 20 thousand on paying of employees under temporary service contract, which is information that the state institution tried to hide, according to the documentation obtained by the MANS Investigative Centre. On that basis, €6,000 was paid in June this year alone.
At the end of last month, MANS requested information from the Maritime Safety Department Bar on the budget expenditure related to payments based on temporary service contract for the period from the beginning of the year to July 20. The request included complete documentation on the basis of which the mentioned payments were made, including payment orders and contracts.
The answer we received from the Department states that in that period there were no payments from that budget item.
– “In the period from 01/01/2020 to 20/07/2020, there were no payments at the expense of budget item 4191 – Expenditures based on the payment of the temporary service contract” is stated in the letter submitted to MANS.
Response of the Maritime Safety Department
However, the documentation obtained by MANS shows that in the mentioned period, the Department spent over 20 thousand Euros from the budget item “temporary service contract”. In that way, as many as 72 transactions were realized, in identical amounts of € 300 each.
Out of the total amount, the Department spent € 6,000 on the payment of temporary service contracts in June alone, after the announcement of this year’s parliamentary elections, through twenty individual transactions.
Data on payments of temporary service contracts
Hiring of workers under temporary service contracts has been recognized as one of the mechanisms of putting pressure on voters in the pre-election period, especially after the recordings from the main board of the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) came to light, which recognize this type of employment as a way to influence public sector employees.
“If we hire our man, we will reduce their votes and increase ours. Let’s help a man get a job and we will have the effect of four votes for DPS”, said Zoran Jelić, a high official of DPS and the then director of the Employment Agency.
It is not clear why the Department decided to hide these payments, especially those related to payments in the pre-election period, so it is unknown what were the jobs of the persons who were paid monthly in the amount of € 300.
That this institution has problems with hiring employees under temporary service contracts is also stated in one of the latest reports of the State Audit Institution, which criticizes precisely payments based on the temporary service contracts and orders the Department to harmonize the employment of workers with the Labour Law.
The head of the Maritime Safety Directorate Bar is Safet Kočan, who was elected director three years ago and is a member of the Bar Board of the Bosniak Party.
MANS Investigative Centre
