While the Secretariat-General of the Government of Montenegro continues to hide from the public data on flights by the state aircraft, data on how the presidents of the Parliament of Montenegro used this benefit in the last 5 years are no longer secret. MANS Investigative Centre analysed over 50 flights that were realized for the needs of the Parliament in the period from 2016 to 2021, and the data reveal possible abuses of the state aircraft for private purposes.
For several years, NGO MANS has been trying to obtain data on the use of the state aircraft due to suspicions that the highest state officials often used it for private purposes.
The change of government on August 30 last year has not brought progress in transparency on many levels. Thus, the new Secretariat-General of the Government continues to hide from the public data that may indicate the misuse of state property.
On the other hand, the Parliament of Montenegro provided the MANS Investigative Centre with access to part of the data in its possession related to flights realized in the period from 2016 to the end of 2021.
Most of the analysed data refer to the former president of the parliament, Ivan Brajović, who used the state aircraft 42 times in four years of his term of office. In 5 months he was the president of the parliament, Darko Pajović flew this plane eight times, and the current president of the Parliament of Montenegro, Aleksa Bečić, twice in one year.
An analysis of data on Ivan Brajović reveals that the current leader of the Social Democrats often travelled accompanied by his wife Dragana Brajović, who accompanied him on as many as 25 business trips abroad. According to the requests for the use of the state aircraft, which were analysed by MANS, Brajović’s wife was the official part of Montenegrin delegation six times, while as a so-called “escort of the delegation” she flew state aircraft 19 times!
As a member of the delegation, Dragana Brajović usually attended Ivan Brajović’s protocol visits, while outside the official protocol and at the expense of citizens, the wife of the former head of parliament visited: Rome, Rimini, Bratislava, Warsaw, Morocco, Tbilisi, Vienna, Baku, Geneva, Tallinn, Berlin, Zurich, Luxembourg, Ankara and Reykjavik.
Ivan Brajović with his wife Dragana
It is also interesting that Ivan Brajović’s wife flew by a “special flight” in several cases while she was accompanying the delegation, i.e. by state aircraft, while it was noted that members of the delegation on those trips flew commercial flights.
In response to questions from the MANS Investigative Centre, the former president of the Parliament stated that he personally covered the costs of his wife’s airline tickets when she was not a member of the delegation. However, in the documentation that MANS had access to, there is no information that Brajović’s wife flew commercial flights. When asked for which flights he personally paid for his wife’s ticket, Brajović refused to answer.
During his five-month term, former president of the Parliament, Darko Pajović, was accompanied on business trips by his advisers and interpreters, as well as cameramen and security.
According to the submitted documentation, current president of the parliament, Aleksa Bečić, used the state aircraft twice during one year of his term of office, on flights to Ljubljana and Budapest. Unlike Brajović and Pajović, the documentation on Bečić’s flights did not contain specific names and functions of the members of the delegation.
In response to additional questions from MANS, Bečić’s cabinet said that the president was accompanied on business trips by the state aircraft by advisers Sandra Radević and Dubravka Joksimović, cameramen and interpreters, as well as MP Boris Bogdanović, regarding whom the cabinet said that “without compensation, together with other members of the cabinet, he assists the president in organizing receptions and visits”.
Last week, the Government of Montenegro announced that the Secretariat-General was ordered to publish information on the use of the state aircraft after obtaining the opinion of the National Security Agency.
The decision came after the National Council for the Fight against High-Level Corruption recommended to the Government in early November that the data be released.
Dejan Milovac
MANS Investigative Centre
