The official data of the Capital City on the spending of funds ahead of the upcoming local elections show that in the last few months, over 43,000 euros has been paid to natural persons for social welfare from the budget reserve. All decisions were made by the Mayor Ivan Vuković, based on discretionary authority and the opinion of the Commission he formed himself.
Most of the social welfare payments approved by Vuković range from 100 to 200 euros, and relate to the improvement of financial situation, help with treatment and education.
In the documentation approving the payment of social welfare, Mayor Vuković refers to the Decision on closer criteria for the use of funds from the current and permanent budget reserve. The decision defines the types and amount of welfare that can be allocated from the budget item, but there are no more detailed criteria on the basis of which the right to social welfare can be exercised.
This document defines that the final decision on who will be allocated the funds is made by the Mayor at the proposal of a special Commission formed by the Mayor himself.
However, Vuković’s conclusions do not mention the said Commission, thus, it is not clear on what basis, apart from the Mayor’s discretionary authorities, decisions on the payment of money were made.
This way of using the budget reserve ahead of the elections is identical to the one that already exists at the level of the state budget, and implies the allocation of welfare according to non-transparent criteria and a huge room for abuse in the pre-election period. According to the data that MANS has published so far, 130,000 euros was paid from the state treasury on this basis since the calling of the elections.
The possibility of abuse is also recognized by the Law on Financing of Political Entities and Election Campaigns, which expressly prohibits the payment of social welfare from the budget reserve, except in special cases that include epidemics of communicable diseases.
It is precisely this possibility that the Capital City is referring to, justifying social welfare payments by the fact that the decision to declare the coronavirus epidemic in Montenegro is still in force.
MANS has already warned several times that such allocation of social welfare, where decisions are made outside the official system of social and health care, opens up a huge space for abuse because the money is spent without clearly established and transparent criteria. This is especially important in the pre-election period where there were already numerous examples of abuses in practice.
MANS
