ASP: Of the 8,7 million passports, the government transferred 34 million to the treasury

In five and a half months of this year, based on 87 approved economic passports, 8,7 million euros were paid into a special account for the development of less developed municipalities, the Action for Social Justice (ASP) announced.

At the same time, they add, the technical government took 34 million from that account, which were transferred to the main account of the state treasury.

ASP announced that, according to their data, 1,4 million was paid for economic passports in January of this year, 2,6 million in February, 1,5 million in March, 2,3 million in April, 0,7 in May. .0,2 million, and in the first part of June XNUMX million.

"At the beginning of this year, there were almost 33 million euros in that account, and they were transferred to the main account of the state treasury on January 13 and thus were shown as income of the state treasury. Another less than 1,1 million was taken by the technical government on March 2, when that amount was transferred to the account of the main treasury," the announcement states.

Since in five and a half months of this year, 8,7 million euros were earned from payments for issued economic passports, and after transferring 34 million to the state treasury, in the middle of last month, 7,6 million euros remained incomplete in the special account for the development of less developed municipalities. add from ASP.

As they said, the money has been flowing into that special account at the Investment Agency since 2020 according to the Decision on the criteria, method and procedure for selecting persons who can acquire Montenegrin citizenship by admission for the implementation of a special investment program of special importance for the economic and economic interest of Montenegro. .

"This Decision ceased to be valid at the end of last year, and the controversial program of economic citizenship, for which the country suffered criticism from international addresses, was initiated at one time by the former government of the Democratic Party of Socialists, and was continued by later governments," ASP points out.

As recently announced, they remind, the technical government has decided that 13 municipalities in the north of the country will each receive one million euros from that money for their infrastructural development, and they will be able to use it for projects for which pre-accession aid from the European Union has not been provided.

"Nevertheless, it is about 13 million euros collected on the basis of the economic citizenship program, while it is not known how the remaining 30 million euros will be used, which the minority government (without political legitimacy, but acting as if it is in full mandate) transferred to state coffers", indicate from the ASP.

They said that the intention of the future government must be to use the remaining money, as well as the money that will be collected, exclusively for the development of less developed municipalities and for sustainable projects in them: "And not for a significant part to be 'extracted' through already elaborated and well-known schemes, such as consulting services, changes and additions to the same projects, formation of various and unnecessary commissions and teams, overpayment of the price of works..."

"This is especially so since it was announced that hundreds of applications for obtaining economic citizenship, which were submitted by the end of last year, are being considered, so it is clear that the approval of some of those applications would mean new multimillion-dollar revenues on a dedicated account for the development of underdeveloped municipalities. The European Commission is continuously criticized this program, demanding that the economic citizenship award scheme be reviewed due to the pronounced risks for the system of money laundering, tax evasion, financing of terrorism, corruption," the statement concludes.