The Social Democrats (SD) of Montenegro have never published a single piece of information about their finances under the Law on Free Access to Information, despite numerous court rulings, the Network for the Affirmation of the Non-Governmental Sector (MANS) announced today.
The non-governmental organization (NGO) said that the analysis of the transparency of political parties in Montenegro for the period from 2021 to 2024, which they conducted, shows large differences in the parties' openness to the public regarding their finances.
MANS said that the biggest cause for concern are parties that generally hide their finances.
"Among them, the most published data was by the New Serbian Democracy (NSD), which hid almost two-thirds of the information about its financing. The Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) published only 1% of financial documentation, and the Social Democrats of Montenegro have never published a single piece of information about their finances based on the Law on Free Access to Information, despite numerous court rulings," the MANS statement said.
The NGO said that, compared to the total amount of officially reported over 39 million euros in revenue received by the ten largest parties in the period from 2021 to 2024, the parties officially published information on only half, or around 18 million euros.
"In the group of parties that are assessed as transparent, Democratic Montenegro is in first place, followed by the Civic Movement URA, the Albanian Alternative (AA) in second place, followed by the Bosniak Party (BS) and the Democratic People's Party (DNP). These parties are completely or almost completely transparent in publishing data on their official finances. The transparency of their income and expenditures ranges from 91% to as much as 99%, which provides citizens with a quality insight into the way in which the parties use funds that they predominantly receive from public sources," the MANS statement reads.
The NGO said that the second group consists of the Europe Now Movement (PES) and the Socialist People's Party, which only partially publish their finances.
"The transparency of these parties is just above 50%, which means that they are not prepared to publicly disclose about half of their financing data, despite the legal obligation. Such behavior significantly complicates analysis and reduces their accountability to citizens," MANS said in a statement.
They said that when it comes to officially reported expenditures in the same time period, which amounted to nearly 38 million euros, detailed data is only available for about 40% of the expenses incurred by the parties.
"This attitude towards transparency completely prevents citizens from gaining insight into financial operations and calls into question the legality and accountability of these parties to the public," said MANS.
They said that, using the Law on Free Access to Information, they asked political parties to publish bank statements from their accounts, as well as statements from their cash registers.
"We determined the percentage of transparency as the ratio between income and expenses from the parties' official financial reports in relation to data from bank statements and cash registers that the parties submitted to us based on the Law on Free Access to Information. In this way, we obtained a clear quantitative indicator of transparency for each party, enabling direct comparison between parties, as well as a clear identification of the level of openness and accountability of their financial operations," said MANS.
They hereby once again call on all political entities to be completely transparent so that citizens have a clear picture of the use of public funds, as well as the possibility of effective control of political party financing.
"For more detailed information and interactive visualizations, visit www.cistakampanje.me", said MANS.
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