The Ministry of Defense (MoD) during the time he was in charge of it Predrag Boskovic (DPS), sent over 30 candidates to study in military academies abroad who did not meet the requirements of the advertisement for the selection of future officers of the Army of Montenegro, and some of them had health problems.
This was shown by an internal investigation conducted in the MoD during the minister's mandate Oliver Injac. On December 13, 2021, the Ministry of Defense filed a report with the Agency for the Prevention of Corruption (ASK) due to the suspicion that the public interest was violated and that there are indications of corruption and the commission of criminal offenses by the former leadership group during the time of Bošković.
The competent organizational unit of the MoD for planning education, training and scholarships and publicly announcing the needs for cadet education was the Directorate for Human Resources. He managed it during Bošković's mandate Mikhail Volkov (DPS), who after the change of government two years ago went to practice law.
ASK has not done anything regarding this report to date. A week after "Vijesti" sent questions from that institution, they announced that they could not answer, and there is no publicly available information that anything was done.
"As prescribed by the provisions of the Law on the Prevention of Corruption, procedures for whistleblower reports are handled in accordance with the law regulating the confidentiality of data, both with regard to the identity of the whistleblower and the content of the report. Because of this, the Agency is unable to provide you with more information on the subject to which your questions refer," the ASK's response states.
The report in question was not filed by any whistleblower, but by a state institution - the Ministry of Defense.
We asked the ASK whether it acted on the application submitted by the former leadership of the Ministry of Defense headed by Minister Injac in December last year, and whether the ASK made an official opinion on the matter. By searching the ASK website, it is not possible to find any opinion related to this matter in the period from mid-December 2021 until today.
In the "Complaint for Endangerment of Public Interest" submitted by the Ministry of Defense and which "Vijest" had access to, it is written that at that time, it was established that "justified reasons for suspicion of endangerment of public interest, which indicate the existence of corruption in connection with public advertisements for the selection of cadets for education at military academies abroad, which was continuously announced by the Ministry in the period from 2016 to 2020."
Late applications, incomplete documentation, bad grades...
The Ministry, it is added, conducted an internal review of the existing documentation in connection with the conducted analysis and after it and determined irregularities carried out by the competent managers in the Ministry during the period from 2016 to 2020.
It is stated that 16 competitions were held and unfulfilled conditions were listed for a total of 33 candidates who were selected in those competitions, and who, despite this, were sent to study for future officers of the Croatian Army at academies in Greece, Italy, Croatia, Bulgaria, Austria, North Macedonia, Turkey and USA.
"Vijesti" is familiar with the full names and surnames of the candidates, as well as the conditions that they did not fulfill in each individual case, or their applications for the competition were untimely and incomplete.
In 2016, two competitions were announced for the selection and sending of 11 candidates to school, and according to the findings of the audit, the Commission, which assessed the fulfillment of the conditions from the public announcement and which was under the authority of the Directorate for Human Resources, selected nine candidates. Four of them did not meet the requirements from the public announcement regarding their high school math and English grades.
During 2017, two competitions were held for the selection of six candidates for future officers, of which one selected candidate did not meet the requirements - the required minimum grade in mathematics.
In 2018, two tenders were also held, the first of which was announced on March 27, and the official methodology for its implementation was adopted only three days later - on March 30.
For the second advertisement announced on May 18, 2018, the methodology was adopted on the same day. In these two competitions, a total of 15 cadets were requested for education at foreign military academies, of which 14 were selected. Of the selected candidates, a subsequent audit found that five did not meet the conditions required by the advertisement regarding grades in mathematics and English.
A year later, in 2019, a total of four competitions were held to select 23 cadets. At the same time, in the case of three public announcements, the methodology for their implementation was adopted after the announcement of the competition, with an interval of one to 15 days. In one of the cases, the methodology for its implementation was not even found in the case file.
In all four advertisements, 2019 candidates were selected in 11, seven of whom did not meet the conditions prescribed by the advertisement in terms of minimum grades in mathematics or English during high school. At the same time, one of the selected candidates who did not meet the requirements did not even have complete documentation for applying for the competition - he did not submit a certificate that no criminal proceedings were being conducted against him.
Six contests in the election year
In the 2020 election year, the Ministry of Defense announced as many as six public announcements for the selection of candidates to be sent to foreign military academies. At the same time, the official methodology for the implementation of these public announcements was again adopted in each case from one to 14 days later from the moment of announcing the announcement.
Very strange things happened in the advertisements published that year, so in the first of them, which was published on March 16, for the selection of nine candidates for education at military academies in North Macedonia, Croatia and Austria, 14 candidates were selected. Seven of them submitted an untimely or incomplete application or submitted incomplete documentation.
According to the findings of the MoD, during the mandate of Minister Injac, Volkov and Bošković sent candidates to training for future officers who almost did not submit any of the required documentation. Three such cases were registered in which individuals did not have a "certificate of Montenegrin citizenship, an extract from the birth register, a copy of a biometric ID card, a statement certified by a court that he does not have the citizenship of another country, a certificate from the competent authority that no criminal proceedings are being conducted, certified copies of certificates of completed I, II and III grades of high school and certificate of grades obtained in the first semester of IV grade of high school, confirmation of the selected doctor that he does not suffer from mental, infectious or chronic diseases.
In one case, the selected candidate did not even attach a curriculum vitae. That candidate, despite this, passed the competition, as well as despite the fact that he did not meet the prescribed minimum grades in English and mathematics during high school.
In addition to him, six other selected candidates did not have adequate documentation that they met the prescribed conditions from the public announcement in terms of general success in high school, as well as minimum grades in mathematics and English.
In two more advertisements published in May 2020, a total of eight candidates for future officers were sought, of which six were selected. Of these, a later audit found that three did not meet the conditions prescribed by the advertisement in terms of general success in high school, i.e. grades in mathematics and English.
"From the aforementioned factual situation, the Ministry is of the opinion that the findings indicate the existence of sufficient grounds for the Agency for the Prevention of Corruption to carry out actions authorized by law and determine whether there is a violation of public interest as a result of acting in the above-mentioned manner. Also, the Ministry uses the opportunity to point out to the Agency the most characteristic examples that support the obvious suspicion that the public interest has been violated during the implementation of the above-mentioned public announcements in the period from 2016 to 2020," states the information submitted to KAS.
The violation of public interest, as considered by the Ministry of Defense, was particularly reflected in the following: "The public advertisement of March 16, 2020 provided for the selection of two cadets for the military academy in the Republic of Macedonia, while eight candidates were selected by the decision of the Minister of Defense. V.Š. a cadet studying at the military academy "General Mihailo Apostolski" in the Republic of North Macedonia, submitted an application for the advertisement after the deadline stipulated in the advertisement of March 16, 2020. More precisely, the ad lasted until April 6, 2020, and the aforementioned person submitted his application for the ad on April 30, 2020, i.e. 24 days after the expiration of the ad, which is why a decision was made for that person to supplement the decision for the choice of cadets," the document reads.
EK, it is stated, did not meet the conditions of the advertisement of March 27, 2018, and despite this he was selected. He repeated the year due to failed physics exams.
Two conflicting certificates issued on the same day
One cadet was declared medically unfit to be a pilot by the medical commission, which was established after the aviation medical examinations performed on June 26, 2020 at the Aviation Medical Center "Dimitrije Dika Marinić" in Danilovgrad. The Ministry was informed about this by the Civil Aviation Agency in an act dated July 6, 2020.
"A few days after that, the appointee personally submitted a certificate issued by the same Civil Aviation Agency, which confirms that he has no health restrictions, that is, that he is medically fit, while the date of the examination was marked as June 26, 2020 (therefore, the same day as well as the day of the examination on which he was assessed as medically unfit). JP. who was selected as a cadet in 2020 and who began his education at the "General Mihailo Apostolski" Military Academy in the Republic of North Macedonia, and who did not meet the requirements of the advertisement regarding success and grades, left the academy at his personal request, due to failed exams. stands, among other things, in the application submitted by the Ministry of Defense on December 13 last year to KAS.
Minister Injac and her associates then offered the Agency access to the complete documentation related to the contested tenders kept in the archive of the Ministry of Defense and requested that the KAS take measures within its competence in this regard.
"In particular, to submit the application with the collected evidence, without delay, to the competent prosecutor's office, if in the process of verifying the veracity of the allegations about endangering the public interest that point to the existence of corruption, the Agency suspects that by endangering the public interest that points to the existence of corruption, a criminal offense has been committed, which is prosecuted under official duty, in accordance with his legal powers... as well as to inform the Ministry about all the mentioned activities, in accordance with the Law", it is written in the application, which KAS, most likely, has not acted on until today.
"News" about how candidates for future officers of the Montenegrin army were selected during Bošković's mandate did not even receive answers from the Ministry of Defense, which is now headed by the minister Rasko Konjević (SDP). The Ministry of Defense did not answer questions about whether, in the period from 2016 to 2020, that department also selected candidates who submitted untimely or incomplete documentation at competitive courses, who did not meet the prescribed conditions or, like the unsuspecting future Montenegrin military pilot, were sent to the Air Force Academy in Greece without having previously met the basic health criteria for pilots.
It is also not explained why the Ministry of Defense, while it was led by Bošković, by the decisions of the minister, accepted a larger number of candidates than requested in the advertisements for cadets, who were the members of the Commissions for the implementation of public advertisements for the selection of cadets by name, how much is the monthly stipend for cadets in the states in by which they are in school and which is paid from the MoD budget, and whether the MoD has, in the interim since Konjević has been at its head, determined possible abuses in this process and what has been done to eliminate these illegalities.
Affair over Mitrović, Konjević accused Olivera Injac of influence peddling
In the past period, Konjević and Bošković harshly criticized former minister Olivera Injac, accusing her of alleged discrimination because during her mandate, the son of special prosecutor Lidija Mitrović was not sent to study as a military pilot in Greece.
On this occasion, the two of them, with the support of some media in Montenegro, launched the so-called the "cadets" affair, and as members of the Parliamentary Committee for Security, they also initiated the control hearing of the then Minister Injac, at which the SDP deputy accused the Minister of "trading in influence and did not send the son of special prosecutor Lidija Mitrović to school."
She denied it, pointing out that this story has no political background because on the advertisement where two candidates were chosen for the Air Force Academy in Athens, Mitrović was ranked third in terms of his grades and success. "We have a situation in which someone wants to set up an affair with you and declare you a criminal by force. All that MP Konjević said is not true. You first come to a conclusion, and only then try to establish the factual situation", Injac pointed out at the time.
At the control hearing of the former Minister of Defense, Konjević said at the end of November last year that there is a well-founded suspicion that Olivera Injac violated the Constitution and laws twice. "ASK also had all this information. After the procedure, the Agency stated that there was a threat to the public interest, which points to the existence of corruption for the selection of six cadets for schooling in Greece," Konjević said then, reading the conclusion of the ASK regarding the Mitrović case.
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