The Pension and Disability Insurance Fund (PIO) is investigating whether the actions of their officials, when awarding an unconstitutional "official pension" to the former President of the Assembly Ranko Krivokapić, has disciplinary or criminal responsibilities.
Director of the PIO Fund Ranko Aligrudic he told "Vijesti" that that institution launched an internal audit - the results of which he expects soon - immediately after learning that Krivokapić was granted a pension under Article 108 of the Law on Prevention of Corruption.
The law "failed" at the Constitutional Court four years ago.
"All employees of the PIO Fund who were connected with this case gave statements in which they presented their findings. We also invited Mr. Krivokapić to take part in our proceedings. The reaction of the Fund will follow soon. The hint may refer to disciplinary or criminal responsibility. We will not hide anything in this or other cases," said Aligrudić, who has been at the head of the Fund for a month.
The Special State Prosecutor's Office (SDT), which was contacted by "Vijesti" after they were unofficially told by the Basic State Prosecutor's Office in Podgorica that there is a possibility that this case is an abuse of office by a public official, did not want to say whether are investigating the case.
"SDT does not provide data on whether and against whom a case has been established in this prosecution, but only data and information on specific criminal charges", they stated in the answer.
Krivokapić received his pension based on a request submitted in 2016, which was processed four years later, during the technical mandate of the previous government.
He sent the request to the then Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare, and not to the PIO Fund, which is responsible for these issues. The request was not filed in that department for four years.
The PCNEN portal previously announced that Krivokapić has been receiving one of the largest pensions in Montenegro since last December. They also stated that the PIO Fund in its decision, which was issued on December 4, 2020, on the day of the Government election Zdravka Krivokapića, announced that Krivokapić had not earned the right to a pension.
According to "Vijesti" information, on November 29, 2016, Krivokapić submitted a request to the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare, in a sealed envelope addressed to the person, in the name of the then secretary of that department, Nikola Dedeić. Since the request had not been processed, Krivokapić urgently addressed the same department on October 30 last year, asking for a resolution of his status.
"Vijesti" was previously informed by the Assembly that their Bureau of General Affairs issued a "certificate on personal request" to Krivokapić on November 24 last year. That body deals, among other things, with employment matters and employee applications for pension, disability and health insurance.
Dedeić, the current secretary of the State Election Commission, told "Vijesti" that he found out about the request that Krivokapić made in his name when he was informed by the Ministry of Labor at the end of October 2020 about the urgency of the former president of the Assembly.
"On November 29, 2016, I was appointed Deputy General Secretary of the Government, and Krivokapić's request arrived on that very day. On the same day, I took up my new position, and the next day I was not at work at the Ministry of Labour. And you know that such requests are opened by the entitled person, so they cannot be opened, nor filed in the archive...", he stated.
Asked why Krivokapić addressed the request in his name, Dedeić replied that the parties cannot decide how they will do it - whether they will bring the request personally to the registry office, send it by mail, address it to the person, deliver it in electronic form...
He claims that he does not know Krivokapić.
"I have never met or seen him in my life. I 'know' him only from television".
Krivokapić did not answer the questions of "Vijesti" as to why he submitted the request in a sealed envelope addressed to Dedeić's name and why he did not apply directly to the PIO Fund to exercise his rights.
There are no similar cases
"Vijesti" unofficially learned that the secretary who succeeded Dedeić found Krivokapić's request after the aforementioned emergency. The document was dated 29/11/2016 and had a stamp on it. The request was filed in the internal delivery book. After that, the secretary forwarded it to the PIO Fund for resolution.
Previous director of the PIO Fund Jadranka Milošević she initially refused to submit documents on the mentioned case to PCNEN based on the Law on Free Access to Information, and after the Agency for Free Access to Information ordered her to do so, she claimed that "the appointee did not receive a pension with this authority".
"Vijesti" was previously unofficially told by the PIO Fund that there are no cases similar to Krivokapić's.
"In two cases, the right to a pension was realized on the same basis, but this was done before the decision of the Constitutional Court from 2017 on the cancellation of the disputed provision of the Law on Prevention of Corruption", said the interlocutor.
"Vijesti" previously wrote to the Constitutional Court and the Administrative Inspection regarding Krivokapić's pension, but there was no response.
The Constitutional Court was asked whether they follow up on the observance of their binding decisions, as this is not the first case that their position has been ignored.
The Administrative Inspection did not answer whether it controlled the legality of administrative acts.
In a written statement for PCNEN, Krivokapić announced that "he exercised all his personal rights in accordance with the law" and that he is now being "politically motivated threatened".
"I did not want to use the legal rights that belonged to me as well as others, because it was contrary to my understanding of the function of the president of the parliament. The function I held for 13 years - the longest in 115 years of Montenegrin parliamentarianism. Since the beginning of this century, for almost two decades, I have been able to use the right to a pension in addition to my salary, on various parliamentary grounds. As is well known, I did not. Now I am not a public official, I have left the political arena and I have the right to legal protection of personal data, like every other citizen. I obeyed the law without question for all 31 years of my parliamentary life...".
The Social Democratic Party, of which Krivokapić is the honorary president, announced that he "legally and timely" submitted a request for the exercise of personal rights.
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