State-owned transport companies are exploiting loopholes in the law to abuse severance payments, a BIRN Montenegro report titled "Monitoring the Spending of Funds by State-Owned Transport Companies" has shown.
During an eight-month monitoring period, BIRN Montenegro tracked the consumption of eight state-owned transport companies - Airports of Montenegro, ToMontenegro, Monteput, Montecargo, Port of Bar, Port of Kotor, Crnogorska plovidba and Barska plovidba.
BIRN Montenegro Program Manager, Jelena Mitrović, said that during the monitoring, legal gaps were identified in the Labor Law that could be abused when determining severance pay and its amounts.
She explained that the law does not prescribe a maximum amount of severance pay, which opens up room for abuse when determining their amounts.
When it comes to the mutual termination of employment, Mitrović said that severance pay exists only if the employer and employee specifically agree on it and that it is the only norm in Montenegrin legislation that deals with this topic.
"This provisional nature allows companies to allocate amounts significantly higher than prescribed by law through internal acts and decisions, which may indicate a political background to the signed agreements on amicable termination of employment relations. The same applies to severance pay given to former members of management who are political appointees," said Mitrović.
The research showed that state-owned companies spent a total of over 1,3 million euros on severance payments, while over 1,2 million was spent on donations and sponsorships - of which the Port of Bar spent over 830 thousand euros for this purpose.
"When it comes to the remuneration and salaries of top management of the monitoring entities, a trend of concealing specific information about this type of expenditure has been observed. Only Montecargo, Crnogorska plovidba and Luka Kotor submitted payroll lists of management members, while Luka Bar and ToMontenegro referred them to the public registers of the Agency for the Prevention of Corruption," said Mitrović.
BIRN Montenegro Executive Director Vuk Maraš said that Montecargo, Luka Kotor and Crnogorska plovidba were the only companies that had submitted all the requested documentation.
He pointed out that the company ToMontenegro responded positively to all of BIRN's requests, but declared the employment contracts secret.
Maraš also stated that Monteput submitted some of the documentation after BIRN's investigation was completed, while Luka Bar submitted aggregate amounts related to spending on official payment cards, instead of bank statements.
"The Port of Bar refused to provide data regarding the use of catering and hotel accommodation services, consulting and legal services, as well as data related to the purchase of airline tickets. They categorized all of this data as a business secret," said Maraš.
He added that Montenegro Airports did not respond to any of BIRN's requests, so all data for the report was collected through public registers of the Tax Administration and the Agency for the Prevention of Corruption.
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