URA: Spajić's department is responsible for the chaos in the Revenue and Customs Administration, there was no theft during Damjanović's time

The Citizens' Movement URA announced today that they hope that, "after the new cut" of the Minister of Finance and Social Welfare Milojko Spajić in the Revenue and Customs Administration (UPC), it will become clear to all citizens and the civil sector who is collapsing that state institution and why. and how crucial a role the Administration has in controlling and suppressing cigarette smuggling.

"After the conflict between the outgoing Minister of Finance Milojko Spajić and his staff, the outgoing director of the Customs and Revenue Administration, it became clear to everyone in Montenegro - why two loads of cigarettes disappeared from the Bar Port Free Zone, which is managed by that Administration, and that the incompetence of individual officers of the Administration' actually hides the systematic and deliberate collapse of one of the most important Montenegrin institutions directly in charge of combating smuggling," stated the GP URA.

Now it is completely clear, they believe in that party, that it is Spajić's department that is "responsible for the chaos" in the UPC, and that the arguments of "delays of certain international projects" are just an excuse on the "premeditated path of a new collapse" of the umbrella institution in charge of combating cigarette smuggling.

"What was started with the never-explained dismissal of Aleksandar Damjanović is now continuing with new actions, with the aim of subordinating one of the most important state bodies to himself and his interests," added the URA GP.

As the party points out, the URA has been reminding for months that the UPC is the only one responsible for the Bar Port Free Zone, from which two valuable loads of cigarettes disappeared, and that according to the law, it cannot be the security sector, to whom the blame was tried to be shifted.

They state that the decision to prohibit the storage of tobacco products in the Bar Port Free Zone was adopted at the end of July last year, at the initiative of the Deputy Prime Minister Dritan Abazović and in cooperation with international partners, which, they add from Ura, created the preconditions for stopping cigarette smuggling.

"However, this obviously did not suit certain circles in the outgoing government, but the primary goal has always been - creating chaos in the institution responsible for combating smuggling, which was best used by the smuggling lobby," they added in the statement.

URA reminds that during Damjanović's mandate "not a single pack of cigarettes was stolen" from the Free Zone of Port Bar.

The party also points out that, precisely because of the decision initiated by Abazović, the legal sale of cigarettes jumped by as much as 40 percent in the first year, which brought almost 15 million euros to the state.