Prime Minister Dritan Abazovic last week he filed a criminal complaint against several former high-ranking officials, due to the suspicion that by abusing their official position, during the allocation of apartments on preferential terms, they damaged the state budget by more than 1,5 million euros.
These are the deputies of the DPS Predrag Bošković, Suzana Pribilović i Dragica Sekulić, Damir Šehović from SD, and to the former minister Osman Nurković from BS, to the former General Secretary of the Assembly Aleksandar Jovićević, and the former assistant to the general secretary Jelena Radonjić.
Abazović submitted the supplement to the criminal complaint to the Special State Prosecutor's Office (SDT).
In December of last year, special prosecutors formed a case based on the Government's criminal complaint against several officials due to the suspicion that they caused multimillion-dollar damage to the state by abusing their official position when granting housing loans.
SDT asked the Parliament of Montenegro for approval to revoke the immunity of Bošković, Pribilović, Sekulić, Šehović, but also Ivan Brajović from SD.
In addition to them, the investigation also included former ministers Budimir Apprentice, Suad Numanović, Sanja Vlahovic and Nurković, Jovićević and Radonjić, as well as the former head of the President's Cabinet and former consul in Sremski Karlovci Drazen Milickovic, but immunity does not protect them from criminal prosecution.
MPs' immunity could be lifted by the end of this week. On the agenda of the current, second session of the first regular (spring) session of the Assembly is the report of the Administrative Committee from December 22, when that working body unanimously proposed lifting the immunity of those deputies.
The state has the right to seize apartments
In addition to the criminal report, which "Vijesti" had access to, the Government is submitting to the SDT, as it stands, several disputed decisions on the allocation of apartments from 2017 to 2020.
According to the minutes of the Commission's session, which were submitted to the SDT, it can be seen that several sessions were held, during which apartments were allocated to state prosecutors, then judges of the Constitutional Court, ministers and their assistants and advisers...
That's how the former president of the Constitutional Court got the apartment Dragoljub Drasković (109 square meters for 24.290 euros), a former special prosecutor who is in custody on suspicion of having committed the criminal offense of creating a criminal organization Sasa Cadjenovic (89 square meters for 18.576 euros), special prosecutor Lidija Vukcevic (75 square meters for 15.653 euros), former ministers Šehović (89 square meters for 22.922 euros), Nurković (exchange of a 60-square-meter apartment for a 90-square-meter apartment with an additional payment of 4.610 euros)...
If it is proven that the members of the Commission damaged the budget by abusing their position, the state has the right to confiscate illegally acquired apartments according to the Criminal Code (CC).
"If, through a criminal act, a property benefit was obtained for another person, that benefit will be confiscated," states Article 113 of the CC.
What is written in the supplement to the criminal report
In the supplement to the criminal report signed by Abazović, it is stated that the Commission made decisions on the allocation of housing units contrary to the Decision on the criteria for solving the housing needs of officials.
The decision stipulates that the official solves the housing issue based on renting an apartment or buying it on more favorable terms.
"From the attached documentation, it is evident that the Commission allocated apartments in such a way that it leased them without exception for an indefinite period of time, with the right to purchase the apartment on favorable terms," the supplement to the criminal report states.
It was further emphasized that the housing issues of officials were resolved outside of the plan which, according to the Decision, is adopted by the Commission no later than 60 days after the adoption of the budget.
"The commission illegally allocated each of the aforementioned housing units from the supplement to the criminal complaint - without a previously approved plan... The General Secretariat of the Government is not in possession of any information about the existence or adoption of such a plan for any of the years included in the supplement to the complaint," it is specified in the document that signed by Abazović.
Although the Decision prescribes that the solution to the housing needs of officials is carried out by applying the criteria of the importance of the jobs and the existing housing situation, and that the fulfillment of the conditions should be shown when deciding through the score report, in no case did the Commission implement that procedure:
"In certain cases, the Commission considered more than 90 received requests at the session, in order to prepare information for the Government the very next day that all of them are justified".
According to the document, the Commission referred to the Article of the Decision, according to which "the Commission, with the consent of the Government, can solve the housing needs of individual officials without advertising...in accordance with the law".
"In the procedures carried out, the Commission prepared information for the Government with proposed conclusions, which the Government adopted, without exception and without any changes. Given that the Decision stipulates that the Commission decides on the solution of the housing needs of officials, with the mentioned action the president and the members of that body deliberately misled the Government, in order to obtain an alleged justification and consent for their illegal actions and decisions. Otherwise, we would be in a situation where the Government was giving consent to issues for which it is not authorized and whose implementation is evidently illegal, as a result of which the members of the Government would be responsible for negligent work in the service...", the amendment to the criminal complaint states.
It was emphasized that the Commission ignored the valid provisions of the Law on Housing and Maintenance of Residential Buildings, which stipulates that the procedure, method and criteria for solving the housing needs of judges and prosecutors are determined by acts of the Prosecutorial and Judicial Council...
"It follows from all this that Bošković, as the president of the Commission, and the members Šehović, Sekulić, Nurković, Pribilović, Miličković, Radonjić and Jovićević, with the aim that, as officials, by unlawfully exploiting their position for an extended period of time, obtain benefits for other persons, which in the total amount exceeds 1,5 million euros, which resulted in material damage to the state, and the aforementioned persons committed the criminal offense of abuse of official position", concludes the supplement to the criminal complaint.
Prosecutors are already combing through affordable home loans
In December last year, the SDT established that there is an appropriate degree of suspicion that the former members of the Government Commission from 2016 to 2020 committed a prolonged criminal offense of abuse of official position, by Bošković as president and the others as members, making decisions on the resolution of housing the needs of officials, contrary to the decision of the Government, and thus obtained material benefits for others that exceed 30.000 euros.
The list of officials to whom the Commission distributed loans in addition to the Decision on the method and criteria for solving the housing needs of officials included the former Supreme State Prosecutor Ivica Stankovic, former President of the Supreme Court Vesna Medenica, former president of the Commercial Court Blazo Jovanić, Deputy Prime Minister and leader of the Bosniak Party Ervin Ibrahimovic, former senior prosecutor Vesna Jovićević, former deputy of DPS and ambassador Edited by Mišo Stanišić...
The Government's criminal complaint states that the former president and members of the Commission damaged the state for 1.823.000 euros by distributing housing loans to over a hundred prosecutors, judges, deputies, ministers and other civil servants from 2016 to the end of 2020. functionary. It is stated that the Commission made decisions on the granting of loans contrary to the provision of the Article of the Decision, which stipulates that an official can be granted a loan "for the improvement of housing conditions up to 15.000 euros".
It is added that the requests were formulated in a lump sum and that the Commission was asked for "financial assistance", i.e. the allocation of funds for the repair or reconstruction of residential buildings or houses, while the applicants themselves "estimated" how much funds they needed.
At the beginning of July, the government canceled the Decision on the method and criteria for solving the housing needs of officials. Previously, in May, the Agency for the Prevention of Corruption issued an opinion on it, in which, among other things, it assessed that its provisions carry an increased risk of corruption.
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