The biographies of the candidates who applied for three positions as assistant directors of the Police Administration have been languishing in a drawer for two and a half months, and insiders claim that behind the obstruction of the competition procedure is actually a silent battle for supremacy at the top of the public service.
The Human Resources Administration, for the needs of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, on October 9 this year announced a competition for assistant directors of the Police Administration for the Border Police Sector, the General Competence Police Sector and the Special Purpose Police Sector.
On September 19, the then minister of the interior asked for a competition for assistants Filip Adzic, who only towards the end of his mandate decided to start the procedure for filling positions for assistants of the Police Administration after several years of extension v. d. solutions.
Although the position of Assistant Police Director of the Anti-Crime Sector has also been held for years by Acting. by decision or coordinated from other organizational units of the UP - MUP, in the summer public competition in the package, he did not request the announcement of a competition for one of the most important positions in the UP system.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs stated in its response to "Vijesta" that on September 19, they sent decisions to the Human Resources Administration to start the procedure for filling the positions of assistant director of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
"Bearing in mind that the implementation of the public tender procedure is within the competence of the Human Resources Administration, we direct you to contact the aforementioned administration for more information," reads the MUP's reply.
They did not provide information on whether the list of candidates has been drawn up so far, as well as whether they have data on who all applied for the three assistant positions, as well as an explanation as to why the procedure is taking too long...
The new minister of the interior Danilo Šaranović as early as mid-November, he was interested in the competition for assistants, so he wrote to the head of the Department for Personnel and Legal Affairs of Civil Servants Sonja Radonjic, looking for answers: when the advertisement was advertised, who are the registered candidates, at what stage is the procedure before the Human Resources Administration...
According to "Vijesti" information, a large number of police chiefs who held managerial positions in the UP applied for the public competition, and some of the current acting police officers also sent their resumes. assistant director of the Police Administration.
At the end of November, the Directorate for Human Resources stated in its response to the "News" that at that time, "the compilation of the list of candidates who meet the conditions of the public competition, in the sense of Article 45 of the Law on Civil Servants and State Employees" was in progress.
"The Administration for Human Resources, at this moment, is not able to provide additional information about the further course of the procedure for the subject public competition", they answered the question of how far the public competition, which lasted until October 30 of this year, has come.
A new answer about the list and who all applied for the competition did not arrive from that Administration.
Some of the candidates, who sent their CVs, unofficially told "Vijesta" that no one has called them so far, or told them whether their documents were accepted, whether they are on the list or when the date when they should have been contacted part of the testing.
According to the Law on Civil Servants and Employees, the competition must be ended, and it could only be stopped in the period from October 9 to 30, so now the key question is why the procedure was slowed down...
Struggle for staff
Former Assistant Minister for Legal and Security Affairs of the MUP and a lawyer Miloš Vukčević he told "Vijesti" that the Law on Internal Affairs clearly prescribed the procedures by which the director and assistants as well as other management personnel are selected, explaining that "those procedures were prescribed in order to try to avoid political influence and select professional staff".
"But politics always finds a way. Well, UP has always been in the sphere of political influence, even though it was conceived to be a professional and independent administration", said Vukčević.
He claims that the procedures are clear and that the law does not recognize that no one is selected, that is, that the registered competitions are pending and are not being finalized.
"It is clear that the political elites do not yet have an agreed position on who should have the functions of director and assistant director of the UP", he said.
Vukčević said that it is clear that the procedure for the competition for assistants is "slowed down", and that after written tests and oral interviews, a list is established, and then the minister appoints someone (as a rule, the first) as an assistant director on the director's proposal.
"So, as a rule, the best candidate is chosen and the law does not recognize that no one is chosen", says the former assistant in the MUP.
And the current director of UP Zoran Brđanin in the last interview, he revealed that during his mandate, he asked for competitions for assistants to be announced, but that "there was no political will for it"...
"I insisted that competitions for the positions of assistant directors be announced, because in that way both the competition and the choice would be greater, and the chosen ones would feel safer and more motivated to work. Unfortunately, there was no political will for that, but it suited someone to have the assistants in the acting office. state, and how exactly they could approve them or not", said Brđanin.
Numerous acting solutions
That for years they are not only assistant directors with v. d. the fact that the majority of other management positions in the UP system is at v. d. mandate or work without a solution for the position covered by the decision of the director or minister.
Lawyer Vukčević states that the phrase - "unassigned officer" has become very popular in the Police Directorate, but that there is no legal basis for such a thing.
"Neither the Law on Internal Affairs nor the Law on Civil Servants and State Employees recognize the term 'unassigned official'. The law does not recognize the possibility of a police officer being sent home and after that regularly receiving his salary according to the scheduling solution he has, even though he is not actually working, and that another officer without a solution, based on the decision of the director, performs duties in his place of work. What is even worse, I noticed that in some official acts of the MUP-UP, the term 'non-assigned official' has started to be formally used, which should not be the case," he stated.
Although advertisements for management positions in depth at UP have been published since January, no one has been selected for almost a year. Vukčević claims that this is also "an indicator of political influence on staffing in the police".
"There is no legal justification for not ending the announced advertisements and not choosing the best candidates, that is, those with the most points. Everything else is political calculations," he says.
According to the public competition, an assistant director needs at least 10 years of work experience in jobs with a VII1 level of education qualification, of which at least three years in managerial positions in the police, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of Defense or the National Security Agency, or at least three years in judicial or prosecutorial function.
The fight for services, a stone around the neck of the new government
If there is a split in the parliamentary majority, it will certainly be because of the security sector, because the parliamentary majority will not split due to disagreements in the field of culture, education, or sports...
This was assessed by Vukčević, a former assistant at the time when Raško Konjević was the Minister of the Interior.
"Each party in power wants to bring a man who is close and loyal to its party's interests to the position of director of UP and ANB. That's why the ruling of the Administrative Court, which ruled on the merits that Brđanin should return to the post of UP director, represents a pleasant positive surprise, because it sends a message that the judicial power is above the executive," he said.
He states that the Administrative Court should make decisions quickly in every other case, and not after a year or two...
"The judgment of the Administrative Court in the case of Brđanin should represent a model by which other citizens would have their cases resolved quickly before the Administrative Court, rather than waiting a year or two for their cases to be resolved," he said.
The police remain under the auspices of the MUP
Although there were some unofficial announcements that there could be a separation, the Police Directorate will continue to remain as a separate organizational unit of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, as regulated by the 2021 law.
The MUP stated in its response to "News" that the separation of the Police Directorate, as an organizational unit of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, is not planned.
"Something like that can be concluded from the analysis of the proposal of the Law on the Budget for 2024, which clearly shows that the Police Directorate is an organizational unit within the Ministry of Internal Affairs," the answer reads.
According to the Law on the Budget for 2024, under the organizational code 40301, there is a budget unit of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, for which 125.760.987,55 euros are allocated, which is about four million more than it was in 2023.
"In the budget proposal itself, the MUP and the UP are not shown as separate units, but the UP is shown as an organizational unit within the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which will continue to be the case," says the MUP.
The FIU assistant is the only one with a solution
That competitions for assistant police directors can be completed quickly is also shown by the case of the assistant director of the Financial and Intelligence Sector, Aleksandar Radović, who in the current scheme of the Police Administration is the only one with an official permit to perform the function of manager.
At the suggestion of former minister Filip Adžić, in mid-January of this year, Radović was appointed acting assistant director of the FIU, and five months later, a competition for that position was announced.
In a quick competition procedure, he was chosen as the best candidate, after which he received the decision for the head of the FIU.
Prime Minister Milojko Spajić recently praised the work of Radović and the involvement of the FIU, who said that "economic repercussions" were avoided by dedicated work, as well as by coordinated Government, Assembly and diplomatic involvement, because Montenegro avoided the "gray list" of MANIVAL.
That unit of the UP and the Government expects to fulfill numerous recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).
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