The illegal session of the Capital City of Podgorica near the end of last year, where the budget for this year was adopted by the parties that lost power, but persistently refuse to hand it over, was made possible by the minority government of Prime Minister Dritan Abazović by giving a positive opinion on the budget proposal, Action announced. for Social Justice (ASP).
The ASP states in a statement that the opinion without objections on the budget proposal for 2023 arrived in the capital and at the address, as they stated, of the illegitimate mayor of the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS), Ivan Vuković, at the beginning of December.
"That is, almost a month and a half after the defeat of that party with its allies in the local elections and at a time when it was already clear that, despite the defeat, they are doing everything not to hand over power. Although the proposed budget of the Capital violates the legal limit on the allowed deficit of 10 percent in compared to the total receipts, because the projected deficit is close to 14 percent, Abazović's minority government approved that excess due to the financing of capital investments," said the ASP.
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However, as stated by ASP, the key investment in the capital city is the waste water project.
"For which as much as 18,5 million is being decided this year, but that investment is already delayed, in the meantime the minority government has asked the local administration to prepare an additional study, the issue of taking over land from the Capital City in favor of the government in order to beat the international loan for the waste water project, while the residents of Botun persistently oppose the intention to build a collector in that area," the announcement reads.
To all these circumstances, ASP says, the minority government clearly "turned a blind eye" and the opinion without objections on the budget of the capital city for this year was given practically blankly and without realistic verification of the data presented, that is, what they wrote from the capital city was only confirmed pro forma of the city in the memo on the proposed budget.
"That this is a superficial treatment is also confirmed by the fact that less than half a year earlier, when the Capital sought approval for borrowing for the purchase of buses, the minority government was provided with different projections of receipts and expenditures in a three-year period," they state.
In addition, as they say, the minority government did not even address the announcement of new employment in the already overburdened local administration of Podgorica.
"Allegations from the letter from the Capital City that it is planned to receive a 'certain number of new employees' in several local bodies and institutions have already been copied, but without any indication of even an approximate figure for new employment, but also the actual needs for it. This kind of treatment is even different and from the former DPS government of Duško Marković, whose Finance Minister Darko Radunović issued a recommendation to Vuković as early as November 2018 to consider the real needs for hiring new executives in local administration due to the need for optimization, and after the mayor of Podgorica had previously announced the hiring of 53 new employees. Marković's government prescribed the obligation for local self-governments to reduce the number of employees by 10 percent with the Public Administration Optimization Plan, but this never happened," the ASP points out.
They add that at the beginning of 2017, there were 2.951 employees in local government bodies, institutions and local businesses in the Capital City, while the Revenue and Customs Administration submitted data to Action for Social Justice (ASP) that in March of this year, that number was 3.318 employees.
"This means that in the given period the number was increased by 367 new employees or by 11 percent. ASP expects more recent data from the Revenue and Customs Administration, especially after the whistleblower's recent report that in the period after the loss of power in some institutions and companies there was a transfer to permanent working relationships of a large number of persons previously engaged through employment agencies. Although the capital city of Podgorica has an influx of residents, due to the separation into separate municipalities, formerly Tuzi, and now Zeta, the actual increase in the number of residents did not occur, so that this could be seen as a key the reason for increasing the number of employees at the level of local administration and public services", ASP concludes.
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