An unscrupulous official again caused damage to the Assembly?

The Assistant Secretary General Jelena Radonjić and the Secretary of the Legislative Committee Vlatko Šćepanović apologized from the Parliament of Montenegro for, as they claim, incorrect information on the granting of loans in the official document delivered to individual MPs and signed by Secretary General Aleksandar Jovićević.

"Vijesti" previously announced that two employees, as well as 52 of their colleagues, received money this year, that is, that they were approved, from the Government Commission for Housing Issues.

The parliament claims that nine employees did not receive credit this year, which was also stated by Jelena Radonjić in her response to "Vijesta".

However, the data that she reported to the Agency for the Prevention of Corruption and those that the General Secretariat where she works for, stated in response, do not match.

In the ASK report for 2019, which was published on the website, Radonjić wrote that she is the owner of a 76-square-meter apartment.

In the document attached to her property record, it is written: "Decision of the Commission for Housing Issues no. 07-004-1223/10 dated April 24, 2017, a loan in the amount of EUR 40.000,00 was granted in order to improve housing conditions, and in accordance with the Decision, Loan Repayment Agreement No. 08/43, dated May 12, 5, was concluded. with the Property Administration. The loan is repaid under favorable conditions in the amount of EUR 2017 with repayment of the loan in installments lasting 8.000,00 years with an interest rate of 10 percent annually. The total amount of the loan with calculated interest for the contracted period is 2 euros, and the monthly installment is 8.825,51".

In her 2017 report, Radonjić also stated that she has been a member of the Government Commission since December 2016, where she works without compensation. Five months later, that Government Commission granted her a loan under favorable conditions.

In the response of the Assembly, it is written that "in the information on the allocated loans, which was made at the request of one member of parliament, due to a technical error in point two of the information, instead of 2016, 2020 was entered."

"We submitted a correction of the information to the MPs. We apologize to Jelena Radonjić and Vlatko Šćepanović for the inconvenience caused by the mentioned technical error," reads the response signed by the Parliamentary Public Relations Department. Those two employees, according to the original version of the document, received 40.000 euros each this year.

The answer to the additional question of "Vijesti" whether the error also applies to seven other officials who are on the same list is affirmative. In a new document of the General Secretariat, it is written that "in November 2016, they sent a letter to the Commission for Housing Affairs of the Government to, in order to solve, that is, improve housing conditions, transfer funds to the employees of the Assembly" for nine officials.

The parliament did not comment on the fact that 45 officials were approved for the improvement of housing conditions this year through the Government Commission. On that occasion, the Deputy Secretary General Marija Mirjačić, then Ana Radonjić, adviser to the President of the Parliament, and for the second time the head of the Department for Information and Communication Technologies of the Parliament, Vuko Perišić, received help.

The distribution of apartments and loans in the election year for opposition MPs is problematic because it indicates the suspicion that the ruling parties are "buying" votes. In the parliamentary leadership, the key positions are occupied by cadres of the Democratic Party of Socialists and Social Democrats. They were not ready to discuss this topic.

In the "Snimak" affair, which has never been resolved politically and legally, information emerged to the public that by "buying" one vote, you essentially secure three more - members of their families.

According to the data of the Assembly, from 2015 until now, 600 officials and one vice-president have received assistance for solving the housing issue of around 107 thousand euros.

Information about the members of the ruling coalition and the general secretary of the Assembly, who received apartments and loans from the same Government Commission, is not on this list.

The separation of powers provided for in the Constitution implies that the Legislative Chamber controls the work of the Government. At the end of December 2019, an alleged document of the Legislative Committee on the negative opinion on the controversial Draft Law on Freedom of Religion was leaked to the public from the Assembly. At the time, it was announced that it was a hacker attack, which was later said to have never happened.

Radonjić: I got the loan in April 2017, it was paid in May

"In the name of the truth and in order to protect personal and professional integrity, I want to present to the public the facts that refute your several days of untrue and tendentious information, as part of a series of articles on the allocation of funds to solve, that is, improve housing conditions for employees in the Assembly and finally resolve the alleged dilemmas about the funds in the amount of 40.000 euros.

Funds for solving the housing issue were allocated to me in April 2017, and paid out the following month, not in 2020 as it is persistently stated. Given that at the time I was the mother of a minor child, without housing, that in the Assembly I was carrying out tasks within the competence of the sector I manage, due to the scope and importance of the work, often even after working hours, and at the same time I traveled daily on the route Cetinje-Podgorica-Cetinje, in October In 2016, I submitted an appropriate request to the Commission for Housing Affairs of the Government of Montenegro, in accordance with the Decision on the method and criteria for solving the housing needs of officials," Jelena Radonjić said in her response.

She stated that she reported everything to ASK.

"I want to draw attention to the fact that in media coverage of some phenomena, such as the one in which I, as a public official, was untruthfully and unjustifiably presented in a negative light, the truth is often masked, someone's profession is trampled upon and selfless work engagement is overlooked, for the sake of a predetermined goal. It is even more devastating that in that case the man is forgotten, squeezed between the institution and the media," said Radonjić.