On March 17, the executive director of "Čistoća" from Podgorica, Andrija Čađenović, paid one thousand euros to a special account of DPS for the local elections in Tivat, and his assistants Vojin Katnić and Slobodanka Čabarkapa paid 800 euros each, according to a document available on the website of the Agency for the Prevention of Corruption.
In the document, among those who helped the ruling party, Dimitrije Sekulović and Dušan Radojević are mentioned, who also paid 17 euros each on March 400. The names correspond to those from the list of employees in Podgorica "Čistoća", but CIN-CG he could not get confirmation as to whether it was about them, because the city company said that they "don't discuss politics at work".
According to the voter list that CIN-CG had access to, Dimitrije Sekulović and Dušan Radojević each live in the capital.
Before the decision was made to postpone the elections in Tivat, the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) collected 12.900 euros from donations for the purposes of the election campaign, and a fifth of it came from Podgorica's "Čistoća". Among those who helped the ruling party are, among others, its second man, Prime Minister Duško Marković, Mayor of Podgorica Ivan Vuković and several deputies, while there is no one on the list who holds high positions in Tivat.
As all the payments of the employees in "Čistoća" were made in two working days, when asked by CIN-CG whether they received instructions from the ruling party regarding the collection of donations for the needs of the election campaign in Tivat and whether they informed the employees about those instructions, from of the city enterprise announced that they could not answer that.
"With your questions, you persistently try to have discussions on political topics within the framework of the company 'Čistoća doo', which performs a public function in the capital city - maintenance of public hygiene. If you have any interests related to the functioning of our company, the competences and entrusted tasks that we perform in accordance with the law and the decisions of the Capital City, we will be happy to answer them," states the reply that was sent from the director's office to CIN-CG- in.
Director Andrija Čađenović is a member of the Main Board of DPS.
The DPS did not respond to CIN-CG's questions about whether they gave instructions for donations to their members, if so, how they read, and especially whether those instructions were forwarded to the city company "Čistoća".
On March 20, the president of DPS and Montenegro, Milo Đukanović, made a decision to postpone the local elections in Tivat, which were scheduled for April 5.
The elections should be held within 90 days after the end of the orders of the competent authorities that introduced measures to prevent the introduction, suppression and transmission of the new coronavirus in Montenegro.
On March 11, DPS submitted a list of candidates for councilors with the slogan "Because of Tivat. For the people of Tiv! DPS Milo Đukanović" led by councilor and MP Jovanka Laličić.
Before the decision to postpone the election, six more electoral lists were confirmed: three parties - Social Democrats, Croatian Civic Initiative and Social Democratic Party, as well as three groups of citizens - People Wins, Bokeški Forum and Goran Božović - honorable and responsible for a better Tivat.
Director of the Research Center of the Network for the Affirmation of the Non-Governmental Sector (MANS), Dejan Milovac, regarding the donation from "Čistoća", said that it is not new that the majority of management personnel are employed according to the so-called party key.
"Some of them are officially members of political parties, and some of them got jobs in exchange for votes in some of the previous elections. In this sense, it is expected that through donations and payment of membership fees they support the party that installed them in a managerial or other position in a public company, because this is an integral part of the so-called of party employment. Unfortunately, the majority of parties that are in power at some level in the country are not immune to such a system, which decades ago put not the best, but the most obedient, in the places where key decisions are made. In this way, in this case, the DPS ensures not only that such personnel help the party with money, but also that, what is more dangerous, they pass on the politics of their party and put pressure on the employees to become part of that system," he said.
Milovac reminds that in almost all previous elections, the public had the opportunity to see lists of employees in state institutions and companies with the labels "safe", "our", "their" and the like. This, he adds, is a textbook example of the capture of a state institution which, instead of its primary activity - providing services to citizens who pay for it, becomes a base of safe votes so that the same system can be renewed in the next elections.
"Unfortunately, this practice is not limited only to addresses where citizens receive basic communal services, such as health, education, local administration, but over the years it has also become an integral part of personnel policy in those institutions where institutional resistance to such practice should rest. This completes the system of a captive state, in which Montenegro has been de facto for a long time," Milovac said.
The Agency for the Prevention of Corruption, headed by Acting Director Savo Milašinović, told CIN-CG that an inspection of the records revealed that 17 of the 21 donors had given contributions or membership fees to the DPS in an earlier period as well.
"The Agency controls the amount of donations and contributors, i.e. controls whether among the contributors there are also persons who are prohibited from giving material, financial assistance and non-monetary contributions in accordance with Art. 34 of the law, such as individuals and entrepreneurs who do not have the right to vote in Montenegro, legally convicted persons for criminal offenses with elements of corruption and organized crime, foreign countries and legal entities, etc. The inspection in question is in progress", the Agency's reply states.
The Agency has not received a single complaint regarding the violation of the regulations on the prohibition of pressure from Article 35 of the Law on the Financing of Political Entities in Election Campaigns, which stipulates that it is prohibited for anyone to exert pressure on legal entities, companies and natural persons during the collection of contributions or any other activities related to the election campaign and financing of political entities.
Through 30 controls, the ASK found an overrun of monthly consumption at two consumer units in Tivat caused by the threat of compulsory collection, as well as due to increased expenses for the gross wages of employees whose job description includes field, overtime, night and holiday work.
Three checks were carried out in the field, in which no violations of the provisions of the law were found. Planned controls on the ground of political entities submitting election lists were postponed after the decision to postpone the elections.
The Law on the Financing of Political Entities and Election Campaigns stipulates that the election participant is obliged to submit a report on the contributions of legal and natural persons to the Agency every fifteen days during the election campaign.
The agency is obliged to publish the report on its website within seven days from the day of receipt.
The elections in Tivat were supposed to be the first to apply the new provisions of the Law on the Financing of Political Entities and Election Campaigns, which increased the limit for donations by individuals from 2.000 to 5.000 euros, and for legal entities from 10.000 to 20.000 euros.
Milovac points out that such a solution will benefit DPS the most.
"Because now he will be able to bring money into the official finances of election campaigns much faster, through a much simpler network of alleged donors. In this regard, it is clear that most of the mechanisms for illegally influencing the free will are still there, and that we can expect that, under the pretext of help due to the corona virus epidemic, they may be more significantly present than before. I think it is clear to everyone that, regardless of the exact date of the election, the pre-election campaign has already started, and that it is once again in the act of abusing the so-called institutional advantage that the DPS unquestionably has in every election," said Milovac.
In this part of the ASK website, it is mentioned that only the "Narod pobejeđuja" party, led by Željko Komnenović, received donations for this election.
The donation of 20 euros was paid by Tijana Dragojević.
"Congratulations" also from Herceg Novi
In the report that refers to the period from March 5 to 19, a total of 21 names are mentioned, and all of them paid 12.900 euros within five days. There are no candidates for councilors in Tivat on the list.
The only payment on March 13 came from the vice-president of DPS, Prime Minister Duško Marković, who helped the campaign of the ruling party with 300 euros. A day later, the largest payment arrived - 1.230 euros from the member of the Herceg Novi Municipal Assembly Andrija Radman.
He gave almost his entire monthly salary to the election campaign. According to the property record that he submitted to the Agency, last year he received around 1.350 euros per month, of which 225 was the councilor's fee, and 1.124 from his regular job, but the record does not say specifically where.
Second in donations was DPS deputy Petar Ivanović, who gave 1.050 euros to the campaign.
That is more than half of his regular monthly income, which was 1.820 euros last year. Of that, he received 1.650 as an MP's salary, and 170 as an associate professor at the University of Donja Gorica.
In addition to the director of "Čistoća", 1.000 euros was also given by the mayor of Podgorica, Ivan Vuković.
According to the record, he earned around 1.420 euros last year, and for most of the year, less than 315 as a professor at the Faculty of Political Sciences.
As for other donations, Željko Lazarević gave 900 euros to DPS, and 200 euros less was given by Abedin Adžović, councilor of DPS in Tuzi municipality. Abedin Pepić and Esad Harović gave 600 euros each, MPs Marta Šćepanović, Miloš Nikolić and Mihailo Andušić, as well as Marina Vujanović, 500 euros each. One hundred euros less was given by Džemal Lekić, 300 by Filip Đuranović, 220 by Mensur Hodža, and 200 by Danilo Drobnjak.
In just a few days, DPS managed to exceed what they collected for the entire election campaign in Tivat four years ago - 8.480 euros.
Among those who helped the party in 2016 are the current and former mayors Ivan Novosel and Siniša Kusovac, as well as then councilor and now director of Tivat "Communal" Vlado Đukić.
Milovac: Elaborate cash entry scheme
The Director of the MANS Research Center points out that their research on donations to political parties during the election campaigns of 2016 and 2018 showed that there is a lot of room for doubt that money from unknown sources is brought into the official financial system by natural persons.
Investigating DPS donations for the parliamentary elections in 2016, according to Milovac, it became quite obvious that there is a very well-developed scheme through which DPS enters money into its accounts, under the pretext of donations.
"One way was that considerable sums of money were paid in the name of natural persons, on the same day, in the same office, and how obvious the complete scheme was was shown by the case of 'Vrela Ribnička', where in just a few days of the election campaign, the DPS from the poorest settlement in Podgorica collected as much as 30.000 euros, out of a total of around 600.00, which they collected from donations from all over Montenegro," he told CIN-CG.
"Another way is for high-ranking state and political officials to 'help' their party during the campaign, so we also recorded payments in only one branch of the bank in Podgorica, even though they are officials coming from different municipalities. The data shows that payments from the municipalities came only on a certain day, which leaves a lot of room for doubt that these were not voluntary donations, but that large sums were entered into the financial system of the DPS in a planned way," Milovac said.
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