Although it presented them to the public as "earnings" that the Internal Audit Service (SUR) of the Municipality of Tivat supposedly brings to that local government and its budget, the contracts on business and technical cooperation that Tivat signed a few years ago with the municipalities of Mojkovac and Kolašin did not bring Tivat any financial benefit. On the contrary, the only person who profited from those contracts was the head of the SUR of the Municipality of Tivat, Jela Mrdak, because the money from the services provided ended up in her pockets instead of in the city budget. This is shown by the documentation obtained by "Vijesti" in the past month based on the Law on Free Access to Information and requests submitted to the municipalities of Tivat, Mojkovac and Kolašin, as well as data from the public registers of the Agency for the Prevention of Corruption of Montenegro.
The municipality of Tivat founded SUR in December 2015, when Jela Mrdak (DPS), a graduate economist, came to that city from Bijelo Polje. She was given to the then mayor of Tivat, dr Snežani Matijević (DPS) recommended by the political director of DPS at the time Tarzan Milosevic, who for years previously, as the mayor of Bijelo Polje, collaborated very closely with Mrdak, who was an adviser in his cabinet for years, and then the head of the SUR of the Municipality of Bijelo Polje. In December 2015, Mrdak was immediately appointed as the head of the newly formed SUR in the Municipality of Tivat, and since then she has been at the head of that service.
Since all municipalities in Montenegro still do not have their own SUR, the Municipality of Tivat concluded agreements on business and technical cooperation in 2017 and 2018, which enabled its SUR headed by Mrdak to provide internal audit services to the municipalities of Mojkovac and Kolašin. in which DPS was also in power at that time. The law allows such a possibility, and therefore the mayor Matijević in November 2017 with her then colleague from Mojkovac Dejan Medojević signed the "Agreement on entrusting internal audit work". In January 2018, Tivat concluded an almost identical "Agreement on entrusting internal audit work" with Kolašin, which was signed by the then mayors. Siniša Kusovac i Milisav Bulatović.
"The user of the service undertakes to pay the service provider a monthly compensation in the amount of 300 euros for the services provided, as well as compensation for travel expenses incurred by the service provider for each individual service performed in the municipality of Mojkovac", is stated in Article 7 of the Agreement with Mojkovac, with Note that these funds are to be paid into the giro account of the Municipality of Tivat in the Crnogorska Kommercialja Banka. It is written almost identically in Article 7 of the Agreement with Kolasin, where it is specified that the people of Kolasin are obliged to pay this compensation to the people of Tiv no later than the 10th of the month for the previous month.
However, even though the Mojkovac Municipality alone was supposed to receive over 2017 euros according to the November 15.000 agreement, the Tivat Municipality did not receive a single cent from this controversial arrangement.
"There were no payments based on the aforementioned agreement with the Municipality of Mojkovac, nor are we aware of the same," was answered by "News" from the Secretariat for Finances of the Municipality of Tivat, which leads Jovan Brinic (Krtoljska lista) to the question of whether and how much the Municipality of Mojkovac had paid in the meantime to the city budget of Tivat based on the services provided to the residents of Mojkovci by the Tivat SUR based on the Agreement from 2017.
The Municipality of Mojkovac confirmed that there were no payments: "We inform you that there were no payments by the Municipality of Mojkovac to the internal audit service providers from the Internal Audit Service of the Municipality of Tivat, in accordance with Article 7 of the Agreement that we submitted to you, because there were no activities on that basis in the indicated period, as well as that there were no claims for compensation against the Municipality of Mojkovac", the Secretariat for Finance, Property and Economic Development of the Municipality of Mojkovac told "News".
However, the report of the head of the SUR of the Municipality of Tivat, Jela Mrdak, on the work of that service, which is an integral part of the "Annual report on the work of the President of the Municipality and the work of administrative bodies and services of the Municipality" (Tivat - prim.aut.) shows that something is wrong here. ) for the year 2017, which was submitted to the local parliament (and adopted by the SC) by the then president of the Municipality of Tivat, Dr. Snežana Matijević: "An agreement on the provision of internal audit services was signed with the Municipality of Mojkovac number 0101-031-715/2 dated 2 11 with the consent of the Ministry of Finance, which defined the amount of compensation for the provision of services. With that, SUR generates income for the Municipality of Tivat through its work. Based on the Agreement, one audit was carried out in the Municipality of Mojkovac in 2017," it says on page 2017 of that report. This means that already in the first year of their cooperation regarding SUR services, Mojkovac was supposed to start paying a monthly compensation of 99 euros to the budget of Tivat, but for unknown reasons this did not happen and to this day "the income of the Municipality of Tivat, which work achieves SUR", as Mrdakova boasted in the 300 report, equal to zero. Tivat fared a little better according to the Agreement signed with Kolašin in 2017, because the Tivat city coffers have earned as much as 2018 euros from it. This is shown by the analytical cards of both local administrations that "Vijesti" obtained under the Law on Free Access to Information and which confirm that the Municipality of Kolašin paid 300 euros to the Municipality of Tivat on December 30, 2020 based on the Agreement on the provision of internal audit services. It is interesting, however, that the original Agreement from January 300, according to which Tivat was supposed to earn 2018 euros each month from the beginning of that year until today, was changed ten months later - on November 300, 8, without any explanation.
Then the mayors Kusovac and Bulatović signed a new Agreement with an amended article regulating payments, which since then defines that Kolašin should pay a one-time compensation of 300 euros annually to the Municipality of Tivat for those services, while the real price of those services will be paid directly to the individual employed by Kolašin. in the SUR of the Municipality of Tivat, which will conduct internal audits in Kolašin. "For audit services and consulting services, the amount will be defined by the contract between the Municipality of Kolašin and the internal auditor SUR (Municipality of Tivat-prim.aut.) who will provide the service", it is written in Article 8 of the amended Agreement. Based on the services provided, the Municipality of Kolašin paid a total of 2.800 euros in the past two years instead of the budget of the Municipality of Tivat directly to the personal account of the manager of the Tivat SUR Jela Mrdak. Data from analytical cards of the Kolašin Municipality treasury, which "Vijesti" obtained under the Law on Free Access to Information, show that based on the amended Agreement between the two municipalities, Mrdak received 18 euros from Kolašin on February 2020, 450, and 28 euros on December 650 of the same year. On July 22, 2021, she was paid 850 euros, and the manager of SUR Tivat received the same amount from Kolašin on April 20 this year.
Although she is a public official who is required by law to accurately report income and assets, Mrdak hid part of this income from the Agency for the Prevention of Corruption and did not report the payments of a total of 1.100 euros that she received from auditing and consulting services provided to Kolašin in 2020. to your property record for that year. Additional income from 2021 and 2002 on this basis, she later reported to KAS. The head of the SUR of the Tivat Municipality did not want to answer for "Vijesti" why the Agreement of the Municipalities of Tivat and Kolašin from January 2018 was changed ten months later to the detriment of the Municipality where she is employed, and to her personal financial advantage. Mrdak did not even answer the question why she did not declare part of the personal income thus generated in her property records submitted to the KAS. "Are you aware that, in addition to violating the Law on Prevention of Corruption, you also violated the Code of Ethics of Internal Auditors of Montenegro, that is, you violated the principle of integrity? Do you think that by acting like this, you have discredited yourself as an internal auditor who should control and contribute to the observance of laws and regulations by other entities that are the subject of the audits you perform?", are questions that Mrdak also did not want to answer.
"Dear Sir, thank you very much for sending your questions to me and our Service. When we have the opportunity, we will answer you, that is, when we finish with priority obligations that have additional value for citizens", Mrdak wrote to "Vijesta". Otherwise, in their work, internal auditors are obliged, among other things, to adhere to the Code of Ethics, the purpose of which, as stated, is "to promote an ethical culture in the profession of internal auditing".
"The scope of the Code of Ethics includes two essential components: principles that are relevant to the profession and practice of internal auditing; rules of conduct that describe the norms of behavior expected of internal auditors. These rules are helpful in interpreting the practical application of the principles and are intended to guide the ethical behavior of internal auditors", it is written, among other things, in the "Internal Audit Manual", which was issued in 2009 by the Department for Internal Harmonization of Financial Management and Control and Audit in Public sector of the Ministry of Finance of Montenegro. The code of ethics of internal auditors in chapter I (Integrity), among other things, stipulates that "internal auditors act in accordance with the laws and regulations of Montenegro and disclose data only when required by law" (1.2) and that "they do not knowingly participate in illegal activities, nor in acts that destroy the reputation of the internal audit profession or professional organization". It is interesting that Jela Mrdak, despite her behavior during the performance of her official duties, in which she used her official position in the SUR of the Municipality of Tivat to acquire personal property benefits, was appointed by the former DPS-SD-HGi city government of Tivat in 2017 as the coordinator of the preparation of the "Action plan for the fight against corruption in the Municipality of Tivat." From 2016 to September 2018, she was even the official integrity manager in that municipality.
Implemented the "Secure Voice" program and remained in the new government
Regardless of the fact that the DPS lost the elections in Tivat in August 2020, and a coalition of three civic lists came to power, the new city administration led by Mayor Željko Komnenović (NP) did not dismiss Mrdak, although she was a prominent member, an activist who implemented program "Siguran glas" and a member of the DPS mini-election staffs in Tivat, which was seen from the documentation that was leaked from the Municipality and the OO of the DPS after the change of government. On the contrary, at the end of 2020 Mrdak Komnenović extended again the five-year mandate of the head of the SUR, because in the meantime she began to provide the new government with information about embezzlement with city funds that was previously carried out by the former government of DPS mayor Dr. Siniša Kusovac.
Mrdak got into a personal conflict with him in 2019, which almost led to her dismissal, so immediately after the DPS lost the elections in August 2020, she started supplying the new Tivat government with information about the "dirty laundry" of the former city administration. In December 2020, Komnenović reappointed Mrdak as the integrity manager of the Municipality of Tivat, where she was previously dismissed by Kusovac. In that position, she receives a special compensation in addition to her regular salary. It is interesting that in the latest Integrity Plan of the Municipality of Tivat, which was made in 2021 under the leadership of Mrdak, there are registered and listed risks, assessments and measures for responding to risks for unethical and illegal behavior in the work of all municipal bodies and services, but there are none for the Service internal audit of the Municipality of Tivat, whose manager is Jela Mrdak.
She works for Kolašin during the time she is paid by Tivat
Although, as soon as her mandate was extended as head of the SUR of the Municipality of Tivat, at the end of 2020 she received a verbal order from Komnenović that the SUR immediately stop all activities that it does outside that municipality and to fully devote itself to auditing and analyzing numerous controversies and possible illegalities in the work of the Municipality of Tivat, its companies and institutions in the period from 2016 to 2020, Mrdak has not done this until now.
This is confirmed by the fact that "Vijesti", although we requested it under the Law on Free Access to Information, did not receive acts on the mutual termination of the Agreement on the provision of internal audit services that those municipalities concluded with Tivat in 2017 and 2018, because such requested acts they don't exist. Likewise, the fact that Mrdak continues to work for Kolašin during the working hours for which she is already paid by Tivat taxpayers as an employee of the Municipality of Tivat is confirmed by the fact that last year and this year she also received payments from Kolašin to her account for the services she provided to them. according to the 2018 Agreement.
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