About the facts, first.
Aleksandar Grgurović, the president of the Municipality of Danilovgrad, claims that this is “manipulation and untruth” but does not deny that 93.216,45 euros were spent on consulting contracts in 11 months, making this city the infamous record holder among Montenegrin local governments. Podgorica, the capital, for example, paid 29.608 euros for these purposes in the same period!?
The mayor also confirms that Milorad Kadić, the former mayor, receives 700 euros per month under a consulting services contract, and that his current advisor has been arrested twice, but claims that Kadić has been "placed in the wrong context."
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And third, no less important: Grgurović, instead of reacting, could have stated all these views in the text itself. Of course, “Vijesti” would have published all of this if he had deigned to respond to the inquiry sent to his official email address five days before the text was published. I believe that if he had consulted his consultant and “Dudi” would have advised him something like this, and not only through reacting so diligently defend the character and work of the former Mayor.
Essentially, when it comes to consulting contracts, it is important to point out what Grgurović does not know or is just pretending to be incompetent about this type of contractual relationship.
Consulting contracts are concluded, or at least that is how it should be, only in extreme situations when external expertise is necessary for areas or tasks for which the client does not have internal capacities. From this perspective, even if the Municipality of Danilovgrad spent all 100.000 euros in accordance with this rule, the question arises of the internal resources of this local government and its ability to deal with current tasks important to the community. That is so in theory, but in practice, as a series of articles in “Vijesti” has shown, consulting contracts are often used to host friends, acquaintances, party activists or party companies. Consulting contracts are an ideal form for something like that because, as a rule, they are concluded without public competition and multiple bids, so, for example, malicious parties could ask Grgurović whether, apart from Kadić, who was arrested for lithium, perhaps someone else from that gathering deserved a few euros from the Municipality with their knowledge and experience?
And that is, in fact, the main problem with the 93.216,45 euros spent on consultants in the Municipality of Danilovgrad. There is no "defamation" here, as the president of the Danilovgrad Municipality says, but only a journalistic desire to inform the public about how public funds are being spent. And nothing more.
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