Former long-time high state official Branimir Gvozdenović he did not make a mistake about the Law on Prevention of Corruption because he provided detailed information on the method of financing children's education abroad - education at prestigious European universities was paid for by uncle, aunt, aunt's brother.
This was determined by the Agency for the Prevention of Corruption (ASK) five years after the Network for the Affirmation of the Non-Governmental Sector requested to investigate the origin of hundreds of thousands of euros, how much it cost to educate Gvozdenović's two children abroad, which the official could not explain with official income.
In the decision of the Agency, which is signed by the director Jelena Perović, among other things, it is stated that part of the school fees were paid by the aunt, uncle, and aunt's brother directly to the accounts of foreign institutions.
However, the issue of whether Gvozdenović was obliged to report gifts from relatives, i.e. an increase in assets of more than 5.000 euros, was not addressed, considering the fact that the students at the time were registered as part of the household of that former official.
The agency, it is stated, "gave full faith" to analytical cards from foreign bank accounts, certificates from foreign institutions... The agency did not even deal with the way of financing multi-year living expenses in Italy and Great Britain for Gvozdenović's two children.
The MANS Research Center and "Vijesti" announced in 2018 that Gvozdenović spent at least 370 euros for the education of his two children in Milan and London, and that he could not save that amount from official income. At the time, he told "Vijesti" that he "had the help of extended relatives", without further explanation.
A gift, regardless of who it comes from, is a legal category
For the director of the MANS Research Center Dejan Milovac the Agency's decision represents another in a series of dangerous precedents in the work of that institution, which continue to create the practice of impunity for high-ranking public officials for obvious violations of the law.
"Gvozdenović had to report that, as he claims, the education was paid for by a third party, regardless of the fact that the money was paid to a legal entity that provided services to his children. This particularly refers to the information that Gvozdenović himself revealed in his reply to the Agency, that the Italian University 'Bocconi' provided his son with a scholarship in the period from 2007 to 2010. At that time, Mlađi Gvozdenović was still a member of the Gvozdenović family household, as can be seen from the report on his father's assets and income," explains Milovac.
What does not exist in the record, he emphasizes, and what must have been the subject of the Agency's interest, is the source from which the Gvozdenovićs financed their children's education abroad.
"Regardless of whether, as Gvozdenović claims, the relatives paid directly to the school's account or gave cash to his children, it is a change in assets and income that had to be reported to the competent institutions and recorded in the property register," specifies Milovac.
Milovac: What would happen if criminals helped officials through intermediary accounts?
According to the director of the MANS Research Center, on the other hand, we have a "creative interpretation" of the Agency "on the topic of what is the income of a public official or a member of the household and what legal obligations do public officials have when it comes to their property record".
"The interpretation of director Jelena Perović and the Agency that Gvozdenović did not have to report school fees because they were paid directly to educational institutions is arbitrary and could potentially be harmful if it turns into a practice in accordance with which KAS will decide similar cases in the future. In theory, if this practice continues, the Agency would not find anything problematic even if organized crime and its related companies help public officials, as long as it is not 'registered' directly in their name", says Milovac.
He warned that "it is very important that the property of public officials, especially those who, like Branimir Gvozedenović, in the previous period had great executive power in their hands and made decisions worth several million euros, should be under the watchful eye of the competent institutions, primarily the Agency for preventing corruption".
Unfortunately, in this example, we saw that the Agency failed to note even administrative omissions and violations of the obligation to submit a true property record, while it is unnecessary to talk about any more complex verification of the lifestyle of public officials. Instead, the Agency continues to justify the evaluations of the European Commission, which in the last Progress Report criticized the quality of the decisions made by this institution," concludes Milovac.
The agency did not even ask about the high cost of living in Milan and London
Data obtained five years ago by the MANS Research Center show that Gvozdenović spent at least 2007 euros for the education of his children at prestigious European colleges in the period from 2016 to 370.
At the same time, according to his reports on assets and income, his entire family earned a total of less than 330 thousand euros in those nine years.
This means that even if Gvozdenović had not paid a single cent for food, utilities and other living expenses of his wife and himself, he would still lack 40 euros for his children's education abroad.
Although allegedly Gvozdenović's son was a scholarship holder of the University of Milan, the Agency's decision does not deal with the issue of the cost of living in that Italian city.
According to a calculation from five years ago, the younger Gvozdenović needed at least 50.000 euros for this. After graduating from Bocconi University in 2010, Marko Gvozdenović in the same year, he enrolled in postgraduate studies in international business at the British Hult University. The price of the master's studies that Gvozdenović's son was considering was about 36 thousand euros, excluding living expenses in London.
It is similar in the case of Branimir Gvozdenović's daughter, who partially received her high school education at St Claire's School in Oxford from 2011 to 2013. Tuition with accommodation, as the official data of that institution showed at the time, was no less than 90 euros for two years. Other living expenses in Oxford, provided that life was modest, had to amount to at least 20 thousand euros in two years, so the entire education in this high school cost about 110 thousand euros.
Further education Marija Gvozdenović continued in 2013 at the City of London University CASS, where the annual tuition is 11.000 euros, i.e. 33.000 for three years.
Branimir Gvozdenović then refused to answer to "Vijesta" why he did not report the "assistance of extended relatives" to the Commission for the Prevention of Conflict of Interest at the time, because he was obliged to submit a report for all property changes of more than five thousand euros.
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