Four presidential candidates owe their suppliers around one million euros in unpaid invoices for the expenses of their election campaign, according to analysis of the official reports submitted by the candidates to the Agency for Prevention of Corruption (APC) one month after the elections.
According to those reports, Andrija Mandić has the largest debts, around 460 thousand euros, followed by Aleksa Bečić, who reported to APC that he did not pay suppliers the amount of nearly 420 thousand euros.
The winner of the presidential elections, Jakov Milatović, is left to pay the amount of around 75 thousand euros, while the former president, Milo Đukanović, owes around 13 thousand euros of officially reported campaign expenses.
The other candidates, Draginja Vuksanović Stanković, Goran Danilović and Jovan Radulović, had settled all reported expenses before submitting the report.
When it comes to the debt structure, the data from the official reports show that until the moment of their submitting, Andrija Mandić had not paid a single cent of nearly 165,000 euros for billboard advertising, which was the amount on the invoice of the company “Đoković”, owned by an official of his party. Over 60,000 spent for advertising on PINK TV also remained unpaid, while by the time of submitting the report, Mandić also had not paid the invoice of around 55,000 euros issued to him by TV Vijesti for advertising. The report shows that he still owes the portal and the newspaper Vijesti an amount of around 35,000 euros. Mandić did not pay the debt to TV Prva of nearly 37 thousand, as well as 15 thousand to TV A Plus.
Mandić also did not pay the debt to Montenegro Post of over 47 thousand euros, as well as nearly six thousand to the state company “Plantaže”. Mandić is yet to pay a debt to companies “CPC Media” from Kragujevac and the company “Ras Press” – which produced his printed materials, over 17 thousand euros each.
Data from the report on the expenses of the election campaign that Mandić submitted to the APC show that he officially spent close to 620 thousand euros for his candidacy, and that only a part of that money was covered by the reported revenues of 142 thousand euros.
At the time of submitting the report to APC, Aleksa Bečić had highest debts to the company “Đoković” from which he rented billboards, and that amount is nearly 80 thousand euros. Bečić owes the advertising agency “High Marketing” from Budva an amount of 40,000 euros. During the previous parliamentary elections in 2020, this company appeared as a donor to the electoral list “Peace is Our Nation” led by Bečić.
Data from the report show that Bečić did not pay the debt for advertising on Pink M TV of over 30 thousand euros, as well as over 27 thousand euros to TV Vijesti, and he is yet to pay around 19 thousand euros to the portal and newspaper of that media house.
The invoice of the company “NTH” of over 23 thousand euros was not paid either, and Bečić still owes around 18 thousand euros to the company “M Promo”, which produced promotional materials. There is also a debt of over 17,000 euros to the company “Rooster Production”, which made Bečić’s videos, while the company “Pogon” is owed around 16,000 euros for the production of printed materials. Bečić also reported that he owes the election observers an amount of over 10,000 euros.
Aleksa Bečić reported to APC that he had officially spent around 537 thousand euros on the campaign, while the reported revenues (157 thousand euros) cover only a part of it.
According to the data from the submitted report, one month after the elections, current president Jakov Milatović did not pay the debt to the company “Đoković” in the amount of nearly 60 thousand euros, which was the expense of billboard advertising for his campaign. Milatović is yet to pay Vijesti around seven thousand and CDM around five thousand for advertisements.
The former president, Milo Đukanović, did not pay all the expenses of the billboard advertising, and at the time of submitting the report, he owed around 19 thousand euros to the company “Montenegro Metropolis Media”.
The Law on Financing of Political Entities and Election Campaigns prescribes the obligation for participants in election processes to open a separate bank account, and that the payment of campaign expenses may only be made from that account. The same law defines that the election account must be closed within 90 days from the publication of the final election results, and that after paying the suppliers, all unspent funds must be paid into the regular account of the political entity.
However, neither the Agency for Prevention of Corruption nor the State Audit Institution find themselves competent to determine whether the parties have paid their debts to suppliers.
The election processes analysed by MANS so far have shown that political parties do not always pay all campaign expenses from the election account, but that this is also done from the account for regular financing, which the Law explicitly prohibits.
Some of the data previously analysed by MANS, which refer to the parliamentary elections in 2020, showed that some political entities never paid significant expenses of the election campaign, and that none of the competent institutions supervised it.
In this way, the suppliers became donors to election campaigns, and the unpaid amounts were actually concealed donations, significantly higher than the prescribed legal limit.
Bearing in mind that in practice we do not have an effective control mechanism for this process, the high amounts of debts that were officially reported after this year’s presidential elections are extremely worrying. In the coming period, MANS will continue to insist on the maximum transparency of the financing of election processes in Montenegro, and advocate the improvement of the legal framework that will not leave room for corruption and abuses.
MANS
