Montenegro is marked as a country with a "very high risk" in the "Government Defense Integrity" index of the international anti-corruption organization Transparency International (TI), which measures exposure to corruption risks in the defense system due to insufficient transparency.
The data was presented at today's panel on free access to information at the XIV anti-corruption conference organized by MANS.
The program director of ND "Vijesti" Mihailo Jovović said that there are institutions in the government that continue the bad practice of the previous government when it comes to free access to information (SPI).
He cited the example of the General Secretariat of the Government and the data on the use of the state aircraft that that institution continues to hide from the public and the media.
Milijana Vukotić Jelušić, Acting Director General of the Directorate for Effective Implementation of Public Administration in the Ministry of Public Administration, Digital Society and Media, pointed out that the Government has prepared a proposal for the Law on SPI that will improve the situation in that area.
One of the novelties is that tax secrecy will no longer apply to public officials, she announced.
Biljana Božić from the Agency for the Protection of Personal Data and Free Access to Information pointed out the problem of the so-called "silence of the administration" when it comes to the willingness of many political parties to respond to requests for free access to information.
Helen Darbišajer, Executive Director of Access Info Europe, said that she was surprised that the reforms in the area of SPI have not yet been completed, bearing in mind what was the publicly expressed will for this to happen.
Darbišajer called on the Government, as stated by MANS on Twitter, to pay special attention to the removal of provisions and articles of the SPI law that seriously undermine the very essence of that regulation.
Natali Hogg, director of defense and security programs at Transparency International, spoke about access to information in the defense sector and how national security is often used to hide data in that area.
Perko Gluščević, legal advisor of MANS, warned that access to information still largely depends on the arbitrariness of the heads of state bodies and pointed out that the wait for data is too long, but also that the deadlines for destroying documentation are inappropriately short.
"We still have an uneven practice in the way state institutions act on requests for SPI, as well as court practice when it comes to lawsuits for denying the public's right to know," he said.
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