Disabled persons and their companions will be entitled to reimbursement of travel expenses once every seven days. Companions may also be members of their families if they are over ten years of age. A companion of a disabled person entitled to reimbursement may be another disabled person, regardless of whether they were each other's companions. The companion and the person they are accompanying on the trip do not have to have the same place of residence.
These are the most significant comments that were accepted during the public debate on the draft of the new law on travel privileges for people with disabilities, which lasted throughout November and December.
The new law with amendments was submitted to the Parliament on January 13th and was included in the agenda of the extraordinary session scheduled for early February.
The first version of the law that was subject to public debate stated that travel compensation could be claimed once every ten days, which was reduced to seven days in the final version, and that companions must be adults, except when they are family members, when they must be over 15 years of age, which was reduced to 10 years. A section of the articles that required employed companions who use their own car for travel to submit their identity documents to the social welfare center in the destination city for inspection, as well as information on whether they were performing work obligations for the employer during the trip, was deleted.
The Ministry of Social Welfare initiated the drafting of this new law on travel privileges for persons with disabilities due to the large number of abuses and frauds related to this right, which were also noticed by social work centers and the Social and Disability Protection Inspectorate.
In the past two years, "Vijesti" has repeatedly written about massive cases of abuse of this right, due to the drastic increase in the number of people with disabilities and the number of their trips. Six or seven years ago, the total amount of this benefit on an annual basis was around 200 thousand euros, and last year it exceeded 10 million euros.
The current law stipulates that persons with disabilities are entitled to financial compensation for 12 trips per year for themselves and a companion within the territory of Montenegro, even when traveling by their own car. Data shows that the most common sections for which compensation is charged are Rožaje - Herceg Novi, to be used for 12 consecutive days, where the user and the companion can each receive up to 1.200 euros. Last year, it was recorded that over 400 persons with disabilities, mostly from the north of Montenegro, travel to Herceg Novi on paper every day.
Last year, 170 thousand trips were reported for the period January - October, for which 9,8 million euros were paid.
There have been cases where people who have been receiving treatment at the Igalo Institute for 20 days come to the Social Work Center in Herceg Novi every day, reporting that they came with a companion from Rožaje, Bijelo Polje, Pljevlja that very day and are seeking compensation, and so on for 12 days in a row, even though they spend the night at the Institute and regularly receive therapy. There have also been cases where minor relatives are registered as companions so that both benefits remain in the family, where people with disabilities are each other's companions, where there are "professional" companions who accompany even more people at the same time, where the longest distances are registered for travel between cities, where a person with a disability employed in one part of Montenegro travels to work in a completely different part of the country every day, and is accompanied by a person employed in a third city...
An interlocutor of "Vijesti" from this ministry previously said that he expects that due to the introduction of control mechanisms into the law, only persons who have a real need to travel will be entitled to this compensation, and not persons who created the entire scheme of fraud and abuse, and that because of all this, the annual amount will be reduced from ten to a maximum of two million euros.
"The adoption of this law will create the possibility of using this difference in money for other benefits for people who are truly in a state of social need," said the interlocutor of "Vijesti".
Some measures jeopardized dignity
The majority of the objections to the norms in the draft law were made by Marina Vujačić, executive director of the Association of Youth with Disabilities of Montenegro, as well as Goran Macanović, executive director of the Union of the Blind of Montenegro.
They stated, among other things, that the 10-day limit was too restrictive, which is why it was reduced to seven days, and that the prescribed age limit of 15 years for an accompanying relative was set too high, which is why it was reduced to 10 years.
At their suggestion, the provisions that required employed companions who use their own car for travel to submit their identity documents to the social work center in the destination city, as well as information on whether they were performing work obligations for the employer during the trip, were deleted.
They also believed that "such an obligation is unacceptable because it represents a threat to personal dignity" and that it is "contrary to the principles of independent living for persons with disabilities and may endanger the human dignity and autonomy of the user."
The Ministry accepted these arguments and deleted these two paragraphs from the law.
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