The president of the Board of Directors of the LGBT Forum Progres, Bojana Jokić, today called on the Ministry of Culture and Media to explain where the 330.000 euros for financing non-governmental organizations (NGOs) disappeared.
She stated in the announcement that the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sports (MPNKS) announced in November 2021 Open competition for the financing of NGO projects and programs called "Culture for All", with a total budget of 330.000 euros.
"Since then, until today, the commission of the Ministry of Culture and Media, i.e. the current Ministry of Culture and Media, which is in charge of the distribution of funds under this Public Competition, has not made a decision on the distribution of funds, thus breaking all legal deadlines defined by the Law on Non-Governmental Organizations, as well as According to the Law on Administrative Procedure," Jokić pointed out.
She added that in order to accurately inform the public, she also reminds that the Commission of the Ministry of Culture and Media in November 2022, i.e. a full year after the announcement of the Public Competition, requested a statement from non-governmental organizations that met the requirements for funding according to the score lists, which is as Jokić tells the commission, given as a possibility by Article 32ž of the Law on Non-Governmental Organizations, after the independent evaluators finish their part of the work and finalize the score lists for the reported projects.
"Since this commission of the Ministry of Culture and Media did not make a decision on the mentioned competition, and responded to the inquiries of non-governmental organizations with the statement that "the same will be made as soon as possible", several non-governmental organizations filed lawsuits with the Administrative Court of Montenegro for violation of the rules of procedure , that is, the administration's silence - failure to make a decision on the Public tender for financing projects/programs of non-governmental organizations in 2021, under the name "Culture for All". The administrative procedure in this case is still ongoing, and the decision has not been published to date, which the question of what happened to the 330 euros allocated by the Ministry of Culture and Media for the said competition and whether this case is looming as another misuse of state resources," concluded Jokić.
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