The former director of the Agency for the Prevention of Corruption Sreten Radonjić hid from the public for two years that he only lacked the signature on the decisions that several deputies of the DPS and one of the Force violated the Law on the Prevention of Corruption because they did not report bans from the Parliament of Montenegro.
This results from the documentation that the new director of the Agency, Jelena Perović, submitted to the Center for Civic Education (CGO).
In support of the fact that almost completed cases were sitting in the drawers of the former director, the fact that half of the deputies informed the Agency in writing in the summer of 2018 about the reasons why they allegedly forgot to report that they had received an additional 400 euros from the Assembly at the end of 2017.
Perović signed the decision that the MPs of the ruling coalition were violating the law in the last days of August, after the emergency of the CGE. Back in May, that NGO submitted an initiative to the Agency, with which they ask to determine whether the MPs violated the Law.
CGO initiated the initiative after "Vijesti" announced that some representatives of the people in the parliament did not show bonuses in their reports on assets and income for 2017.
Radonjić did not answer questions about whether he kept these cases in a drawer, given that the results in many cases were known two years ago.
When asked by director Jelena Perović whether she had determined why the decisions were not made earlier, the Agency replied that "so far" they have made these eight decisions in those cases "where the conditions for decision-making have been met, and the decisions have been delivered to the applicant".
"Proceedings are ongoing in the other cases to which your question refers, and decisions will be made as soon as possible. Considering the duration of the procedures initiated by the NGO CGO, their completion, i.e. the adoption of Decisions in cases where the legal requirements are met, is among the priorities of the Agency's work", the Agency's response claims.
It could have been done in 15 days
Decisions that MPs Ana Nikolić, Momčilo Martinović, Danijel Živković, Filip Vuković, Bogdan Fatić, Genci Nimanbegu, Željko Aprcović and Petar Smolović are violating the law were made on August 31.
CGO Executive Director Daliborka Uljarević told "Vijesti" that cases like these "could have been resolved in two weeks, instead of gathering dust for almost two and a half years in the drawers of the Agency's director".
"The fact that the new director found the strength to sign decisions against DPS officials and some of their partners the day after the announcement of the election results, from which it was clear that they had lost power, is a sad indicator of her personal and professional integrity. That calculation with decisions that can harm the authorities by the managers of such institutions essentially cancels their independence and reminds us that it is necessary to ventilate these structures", believes Uljarević.
Although it now took them almost two and a half years, in the Agency's register you can find decisions in which the entire procedure was completed in less than a month.
Uljarević points out that the Agency has shown exceptional agility in its actions so far when it came to opposition public officials, and reports related to them were resolved in an extremely short period of time.
"This indicates that there is professional capacity among the official staff, but also that the leadership was and remains limited by the party, which resulted in such a selective approach," she believes.
Some agree that they broke the law, some did not manage with the application
The Agency gives those against whom it conducts proceedings two opportunities to comment on the results of the investigation.
A review of the decisions submitted to the CGO shows that, for example, on June 18, 2018, Ana Nikolić informed the Agency that "by an unintentional oversight, she omitted to report the salary supplement", and a month and a half later, on July 27, that she agreed with findings that she violated the law.
The same explanation was given by Filip Vuković on June 20, and by Momčilo Martinović a day later. In the first half of July, the Agency gave Vuković the opportunity to respond to the Agency's findings a second time, but he did not use that right. They confirmed that Martinović did not report the variable on August 6, 2018.
Former MP and current President of the Municipality of Bijelo Polje, Petar Smolović, informed the Agency on June 20, 2018 that he failed to report the bonus "due to circumstances that occurred in a short period of time, caused by the transition from one function to another", and a month later, 27 On July, he stated that he did not know that it was a variable because "an appropriate intelligence act was not passed on it, which, as he says, is within the legal competence of the General Secretary of the Assembly and the collegium of the President of the Assembly".
On July 31, 2018, Fatić said that due to not being able to find it in the Agency's application, he omitted to report the variable. The agency offered him a second chance in November of the same year, but he did not take advantage of it.
He told Nimanbegu on June 5 that it was an unintentional oversight and that during that period he was often receiving hospital treatment. He was given the opportunity to comment on the findings twice, on July 24, 2018 and on October 3, 2019, but he did not exercise his right.
On June 18, MP Danijel Živković informed the Agency that it was an "inadvertent oversight", but the Agency waited until October 3, 2019 to send the MP a notification about the results of the investigation. He did not exercise that right.
On June 27, 2018, the former member of parliament and current chairman of the Municipality of Kotor, Željko Aprcović, informed the Agency that it was an unintentional oversight, but the Agency did not send the member a notification about the results of the investigation until September 12, 2019. He didn't exercise his right to answer either.
ASK sent a second statement after the CGO emergency in September 2019.
Urgent appeals to the Council without results
The Council of the Agency asked Radonjić to inform them about what is happening with those cases, and in mid-October, his deputy at the time, Savo Milašinović, informed them that proceedings had been initiated against eight MPs, and at that moment, drafts of three cases were being prepared. decision, in four the results of the investigation procedure were sent, and in one the Agency cannot even serve a summons for the hearing of the MP. These data do not correspond to the data from the decision.
"It should not be forgotten that this Council of ASK was elected exclusively by the votes of DPS and partners, and that we submitted urgent requests to the same Council regarding this issue from the day they held the first session and it had no effect. I think that all actors should test independent institutions like KAS as much as possible in order to see the deficiencies as clearly as possible and thus to be able to intervene in the direction of their rehabilitation. These interventions, sooner or later, in addition to legislative ones, will inevitably include personnel changes, because it is people who make institutions functional or, for the sake of some particular interests, limit and sometimes even block them. That's why the role of critically oriented NGOs and the media is crucial, as this case has proven," said Uljarević.
They gave him a new state agency, while the proceedings were pending
At the end of December, the Assembly elected Sreten Radonjić as the President of the Council of the Personal Data Protection Agency.
She did this with the votes of the members of the ruling coalition.
At that moment, six out of eight deputies voted for him, for whom the procedure was ongoing at that moment, but it was not announced.
They are Nikolićeva, Martinović, Vuković, Fatić and Nimanbegu.
Previously, the Administrative Board supported Radonjić as the President of the Council.
Board members are Nikolićeva and Fatić, and as a substitute for Marta Šćepanović, Martinović voted on the board and instead of Ervin Ibrahimović, he voted for Nimanbeg.
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