Milašinović purged property records

Reports on the income and assets of certain public officials were deleted from the registers of the Agency for the Prevention of Corruption, by order of former acting director Savo Milašinović. This is stated in the documentation that "Vijesti" had access to.

The Agency said that this should not have been done, but that they could not initiate disciplinary proceedings against Milašinović because he is no longer on their list of employees. Milašinović did not make a statement until the conclusion of this issue.

The agency found that property records were deleted when acting on the reports of whistleblower and former employee of Podgorica's "Čistoća" Denis Hota.

Hot reported that the two assistant directors of "Čistoća", Vojin Katnić and Slobodanka Čabarkapa, did not submit their property records, which they were required to do under the Law on Prevention of Corruption.

The law stipulates that a public official is obliged to submit a regular annual property card at least once a year by March 31.

Hot, however, received a decision at the beginning of the month that the two did not violate the law, despite the fact that there are no records of them in the registry. In the explanation of the decision signed by director Jelena Perović, it is stated that the two of them "were instructed by an employee of the Agency that they do not have the status of a public official", so according to the Agency's opinion, they were not required to submit the records.

Katnić and Čabarkapa said that they had delivered the records to the Agency, but that in consultation with their colleagues they found out that they might not have had this obligation, so they met with the assistant director at the time. They were then told that they did not have the status of public officials and that their records "will be removed from the Agency's website in order to avoid confusion."

They reiterated that they were informed by Milašinović that they were not public officials "and that this legal interpretation was the position of the Agency, which is official, confirmed by the fact that the reports were subsequently deleted from the official records as redundant and unnecessary".

Perović appreciated their statements that they were told by Milašinović that they did not have the status of a public official, so she found them to be true, "and this is because they were confirmed by material evidence - an email (April 9, 2019) sent to the head of the IT sector ordered by the then assistant director to remove the reports from the Agency's website" for two assistant directors of the Podgorica company because they do not have the status of a public official.

An inspection of the official records of public officials, however, found that Katnić has been in it since the beginning of 2016, and Čabarkapa since the end of 2017.

"The agency has clear procedures and rules for every action taken. In cases where the management believes that someone is not a public official, such a position must be justified through a decision. In the case you mentioned, it was absent. There is only an order to the IT sector to delete two property records, which should not have been acted upon. We do not support any violation of procedure, nor circumvention of regulations, no matter what the motives behind such actions are", told "Vijesti" from the Agency when asked how they comment on Milašinović's move and whether they support his actions.

The agency will also, based on the question of "Vijesti", check whether there have been other cases of card deletion.

When asked whether Milašinović was sanctioned, the Agency said that he was no longer employed at that institution "which prevented us from initiating disciplinary proceedings against him".

The Agency said that his employment ended on July 21, after he was offered the position of Independent Advisor I, which he did not accept, after the end of his mandate. "In mid-August, Milašinović filed three lawsuits against the Agency in order to cancel the act by which he was informed that his employment had ended due to the expiration of his mandate," the Agency told "Vijesta".

This institution has previously issued controversial opinions, such as the one from the beginning of 2019 that the advisors of the president of the state are not public officials. Unlike them, advisers to the Prime Minister and the Parliament of Montenegro were considered public officials.

The controversial opinion was changed at the beginning of this year, and according to it, the advisors of the president of the state are also public officials.

Hot: Examine whether the error is intentional or not

Hot believes that it would be interesting to hear the opinion of someone from the ranks of distinguished lawyers, because the situation is that the assistant director of the Agency either did not know the law or "consciously made a 'mistake' in the explanation of the decision".

"Furthermore, it is completely unclear to me why it took more than 12 months for the Agency to decide on the requests, especially if you take into account the explanation of the decision, because it is clear that it was a very simple situation. In this way, public officials failed to submit reports for 2020 in accordance with the law. Also, it is unclear to me why the Agency did not check the reports that, as stated in the explanation, were deleted, because there must certainly be a trace of the submitted reports," he told "Vijesti".

Hot has the status of a whistleblower, and on his initiative, the Agency made decisions on violations of the Law in the case of the director of "Čistoća" Andrije Čađenović and the majority of the members of the Board of Directors of this Podgorica company - Miodrag Kostić, Isen Gashij and Đur Šaban.

In the decision, the Director of the Agency ordered Katnić and Čabarkapa to submit property records within 30 days from the day of receipt of the opinion. Čabarkapa has already done that, it can be seen in the Agency's register.

She reported, among other things, that she is the owner of an apartment of 48 and half of an apartment of 49 square meters that she acquired by purchase, as well as an inherited fifth of the house and auxiliary buildings with a total area of ​​153 square meters.

She also reported that she has 18.172 fixed-term savings, and less than 22.000 euros in current accounts. She did not consent to the inspection of the bank accounts.