During 2019 and 2020, the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) received around 6.1 million euros from the state budget, while data on their spending are only partially available. In addition, for the observed period, DPS did not publish any data related to transactions through the treasury, i.e. cash payments.
This party received 4.3 million euros from the state budget in the observed two years, while additional 1.8 million was paid from the budget of local self-governments.
DPS only partially responded to over 100 requests for free access to information about its finances submitted by MANS in the past two years, deliberately deleting data on outflows (expenses), but also on inflows to the bank accounts of this party. Thus, for last year’s parliamentary elections, complete data were available for only 13% of transactions.
DPS also removed data on its donors from its account statements, which the party started doing after MANS uncovered several different schemes to transfer suspicious money into official election campaign funds. MANS had previously discovered a mechanism in which money of unknown origin was paid into DPS’ bank accounts through so-called “intermediaries” in the form of donations.
Thus, DPS was “helped” by the workers of public companies from Podgorica, charity cases from Vrela Ribnička and Berane, but also high-ranking officials of that party through pre-agreed dynamics.
The “Envelope” affair is also related to this party, as well as the confession of the head of that party, Milo Đukanović, that DPS had previously received donations that were not recorded in the official reports of that party.
Bearing in mind that the work of parties is predominantly financed from the money of citizens of Montenegro, MANS previously called on parliamentary political parties to make their financial operations public.
The data we have obtained so far show that only four of the 17 political parties (Democratic Montenegro, Forca, the Bosniak Party and Demos) provided complete information on their business.
On the other hand, the Movement for Change and the Social Democrats of Montenegro, which in 2019 and 2020 received 1.8 million euros from the budget, did not submit any data on their financial operations.
MANS
