Membership fee 27 million for seven years

The State Audit Institution (DRI) determined that the state must more efficiently plan the allocation of money from the budget for membership in domestic and international organizations (contributions).

The SAI came to this assessment after controlling allocations from the budget for contributions from 2013 to 2019.

The audit included the documentation of the Ministries of Defense, Foreign Affairs and Science.

According to data from the SAI, they spent 27,02 million euros for these purposes in seven years.

"In this period, there is an increase in planned and realized expenditures on an annual level, that is, in the period of 2019 compared to 2013, planning and execution increased from two million to six million. It was determined that the system of money planning based on contributions for the controlled period from 2013 to 2019 was not efficient enough, and it was not efficient in the part of refunding money. The existing system of planning and refunding money based on contributions requires additional improvements in terms of more efficient planning and keeping records of financial obligations, i.e. expenses based on membership in international organizations and concluded international agreements and contracts", is the opinion of the SAI.

The audit was led by a member of the DRI Senate, Branislav Radulović, while the other member of the collegium was the president of the DRI Senate, Milan Dabović.

Miss it

In previous audits, the Supreme Audit Office found that state authorities paid money for membership in international organizations from other budget positions, such as expenses for banking services and negative exchange rate differences and expenses for consulting services, projects and studies. In addition, it was determined that they do not plan money for the costs of membership in international organizations, and these are shown as outstanding liabilities in the forms for outstanding liabilities that they have to submit to the Ministry of Finance.

The audit found that in some cases the request for the allocation of money does not contain an estimate of expenses individually for each contribution, but only the total amount. It happens that there is no assessment of contribution expenses for a three-year period.

"In the audit process, it was established that, in addition to obligations based on regular contributions based on membership in domestic and international organizations, Montenegro also has obligations based on voluntary contributions, donations, grants, which allocate additional money based on already existing membership in domestic and international organizations. international organizations. But there are no clearly defined guidelines and procedures regulating the procedure for assuming additional financial obligations based on already existing membership in domestic and international organizations. In some cases, payments for contributions were made from money allocated to accounts for other purposes, such as the current budget reserve," the report says.

The three ministries, as pointed out by the SAI, do not have procedures to regulate the process of planning, implementation, monitoring, reporting and control of the execution of financial obligations based on membership in international organizations and concluded international agreements.

Accurate records, estimates for three years, more realistic planning...

The SAI recommended that the Ministries of Defense, Science and Foreign Affairs develop guidelines/procedures that will regulate record keeping and the process of planning, implementation and reporting.

The recommendation for the MFA is to establish a single database/central register of approved contributions with financial indicators and to estimate expenditures for three years...

The recommendation for the Ministry of Defense is that in the explanation of the request for money, it shows data on the structure of expenditures for individual contributions and plans them more realistically.

Radulović told "Vijesta" that all three ministries accepted the established factual situation and issued recommendations in their statements.

"It is necessary that within six months, in which the ministries are required to report on the implementation of the recommendations, the proposed improvements should be implemented and thus the necessary progress in this segment of public finance management should be achieved," explained Radulović.