The Network for the Affirmation of the Non-Governmental Sector (MANS) announced today that four presidential candidates owed suppliers around one million euros in unpaid invoices for the costs of their election campaigns.
MANS stated that this is shown by the analysis of the official reports submitted by the candidates to the Agency for the Prevention of Corruption (ASK), one month after the election.
"According to those reports, Andrija Mandić, around 460 euros, and Aleksa Bečić, who reported to ASK that he did not pay suppliers the amount of almost 420 euros, have the biggest debts. The winner of the presidential election, Jakov Milatović, still has to pay the amount of about 75 thousand euros, while the former president, Milo Đukanović, owed about 13 thousand euros of officially reported campaign expenses. The other candidates, Draginja Vuksanović Stanković, Goran Danilović and Jovan Radulović, settled all reported expenses before submitting the report," it is pointed out in announcement.
MANS added that when it comes to the debt structure, the data from the official reports show that Andrija Mandić had not paid a single cent of nearly 165 euros for the rental of billboards, as much as the invoice of the company "Đoković", which is owned by functionary of his party.
"Over 60 spent for advertising on PINK television also remained unpaid, while by the time the report was submitted, Mandić had not even paid the invoice of around 55 euros issued to him by Television Vijesti for advertising. The report shows that he remained in debt to the portal and newspaper Vijesti, in the amount of about 35.000 euros. Mandic did not pay the debt to TV Prva of almost 37, nor 15 to TV A plus. Mandic did not pay the debt to the Post Office of Montenegro of over 47 euros, nor almost six thousand to the state to the company "Plantaže". To the company "CPC Media" from Kragujevac and the company "Ras Press" - which produced his printed materials, Mandić owed over 17 euros each," the MANS press release says.
The non-governmental organization (NGO) said that the data from the report on the expenses of the election campaign that Mandić submitted to the KAS show that he officially spent close to 620 thousand euros for his candidacy, and that only part of that money was covered by the reported income of 142 thousands of euros.
"At the time of submitting the report to ASK, Aleksa Bečić owed the most to the company Đoković, from which he rented billboards, an amount of almost 80 euros. Bečić owed 40 euros to the Budva advertising agency "High Marketing". During the previous parliamentary elections in 2020, the company appeared as a donor to the election list "Peace is our nation" led by Bečić, according to MANS.
They also said that the data from the report shows that Bečić did not pay the debt for advertising on Pink M television of over 30 thousand euros, nor over 27 thousand euros to TV Vijesti, and about 19 thousand euros he owed to the portal and newspaper of that media company.
"The invoice of the company "NTH" of over 23 thousand euros has not been paid, and Bečić owes about 18 thousand euros to the company "M Promo", which made promotional materials. There is also a debt of over 17 thousand euros to the company "Rooster Production", which made video clips for Bečić, while the company "Pogon" for the production of printed materials is still owed about 16 thousand euros. Bečić also reported that he owes the election observers an amount of over 10 thousand euros. Aleksa Bečić reported to the ASK that on officially spent about 537 thousand euros on the campaign, while the reported income (157 thousand euros) covers only a part of that," the announcement reads.
MANS said that according to the data from the submitted report, a month after the election, the current President of Montenegro, Jakov Milatović, had not closed the debts to the company "Đoković" in the amount of almost 60 thousand euros, which was the cost of renting billboards for his campaign.
"Milatović owes about seven thousand to Vijesti and about five thousand to CDM for advertisements," said MANS.
They also state that the former president of Montenegro, Milo Đukanović, did not pay all the costs of the billboard and at the time of submitting the report, he owed about 19 thousand euros to the company "Montenegro Metropolis Media".
"The Law on the Financing of Political Entities and Election Campaigns prescribes the obligation for participants in the election process to open a special giro account, and that the payment of campaign expenses may only be made from that account. The same law defines that the election account must be closed within 90 days of publication of the final results of the election, and that all unspent funds, after paying the suppliers, must be paid into the regular account of the political subject. However, neither the Agency for the Prevention of Corruption nor the State Audit Institution believe that they are not competent to determine whether the parties have paid their debts to suppliers," the announcement reads.
MANS said that the election processes they have analyzed so far have shown that political parties do not always pay all campaign expenses from the election account, but that this is also done from the account for regular financing, which the law expressly prohibits.
"Some of the data previously analyzed by MANS, which refer to the parliamentary elections in 2020, showed that certain political subjects never paid significant expenses of the election campaign, and that none of the competent institutions supervised it. suppliers have become donors to election campaigns, and the unpaid amounts are in fact disguised donations, significantly higher than the attributed legal limit. Bearing in mind that in practice we do not have an effective control mechanism for this process, the high amounts of debts that were officially reported after this year's presidential elections are extremely worrying. MANS will and in the coming period, continue to insist on the maximum transparency of the financing of election processes in Montenegro and advocate for the improvement of the legal framework that will not leave room for corruption and abuses", the MANS statement concludes.
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