The entire complex in the "Vektra" building in Podgorica, which houses the most important state institutions, is managed as an asset of Dragan Brković's private company "Vektra Montenegro", which was declared bankrupt three years ago.
The State Audit Institution (DRI) has been dealing with the issue of state property records for years, and the situation with the "Vektra" building in Podgorica is just one example.
Thus, in 2018, the Supreme Audit Office recommended that the official building used by the Ministry of Education be registered in the list of immovable properties, but this has not been done until today, six years later.
In the electronic database at the ekatastar.me location, there is no data for some facilities used by the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MUP), among others, the border crossing GP "Zatrejebačka Cijevna - Grabon". That GP between Montenegro and Albania, which connects Podgorica and Gusinje, was opened in August 2021.
The Law on State Property entered into force in March 2009, and it stipulates the obligation for bodies and public services founded by Montenegro, i.e. municipalities, to list, evaluate and record immovable properties under their jurisdiction, and within a year submit information about this to the administrative body responsible for property affairs. The state property register was supposed to be operational by the summer of 2010.
The State Audit Institution has already carried out audits twice before (in 2011 and 2019) in the area of state property and pointed out the identified irregularities to the Parliament and the Government. Given that, even after the audits, the corresponding electronic public Register of State Property Real Estate established in Articles 46 and 47 of the Law on State Property had not been established, the SAI again conducted another success audit in 2023 - "Management of the State Property Real Estate Register" and determined that the process of establishing and managing the Register of State Property is not yet sufficiently successful," DRI Senator Branislav Radulović told "Vijesta".
In relation to that last audit, seven recommendations were made, the implementation of which is the responsibility of the Ministry of Spatial Planning, Urbanism and State Property (successor of the Ministry of Finance in that part) and the Administration for State Property.
"The most important are the recommendations related to the incomplete (sub-legal) normative framework, inappropriate way and procedure of data completion, quality control system and demarcation of state property. The Administration for State Property was also ordered to sign contracts on the use of real estate in state property with direct users and other entities that do not exist now," said Radulović.
According to him, a special problem is the non-existent assessment of state property.
"As a result, the implementation of the Law on Accounting in the Public Sector has been postponed again," he said.
Although it was announced, the Committee for Economy, Finance and Budget did not deal with the topic of state property records.
According to Radulović, the SAI will check the level of implementation of the issued recommendations at the end of March and submit a special report on that.
They do not "hear" the recommendations even six years later
The official building used by the Ministry of Education, which is located near the Gymnasium "Slobodan Škerović", in the center of Podgorica, is also used by the Institute for Education, as well as public institutions, the Center for Vocational Education and the Examination Center.
In the cadastral records, in the part where the data on the type of rights in relation to the plot of land on which the building is located are listed, Montenegro (ownership), Art School for Primary and Secondary Education "Vasa Pavić" (management) and the Government of Montenegro ( disposition).
In the part where data about the buildings on the plot should be entered, however, nothing has been entered.
"DRI also determined that the official building, which, in addition to the Ministry of Education, is also used by the Institute of Education, the JU Center for Vocational Education and the JU Examination Center is not registered in the real estate register, so the Property Administration does not have the necessary data for registration in the real estate register. It is recommended that the building be registered in the immovable property register", it was stated in the 2018 SAI audit.
The supreme audit then gave a deadline of six months to comply with the recommendations, but this has not been done to date.
Everything that is the property of the state, but officially is not
In the 2019 audit of the success of the establishment, management and control of state property records by state authorities, the SAI stated, among other things, that "the records kept by the Property Administration are not complete".
"Because it does not contain data on state property for all the authorities that use it. The Property Administration did not undertake any activities to ensure that all authorities using state property submit the necessary data.
In some cases, the Property Administration is unable, due to the lack of necessary documentation for buildings whose construction was financed from donations, to register real estate owned by the state", they stated in that audit, adding that such is the case with, for example, an official building that is used the former Ministry of Sustainable Development and Tourism, today the Ministry of Spatial Planning, Urbanism and State Property.
The Institute for Hydrometeorology and Seismology of Montenegro is in the same building.
In the audit from 2023, the supreme audit found that there is no data in the database of the Real Estate Administration for facilities used by the Department of Internal Affairs.
As they stated, there is no data in the Administration's database for the border crossings Zatrijebačka Cijevna, Božaj, Vraćenovići, there is no data in the database for the facility of the Security Center Bar - the annex of the facility with an area of 73 square meters, the annex of the facility of the Security Department in Rožaje, with an area of 251 square meters, and in the database neither is the reconstructed facility, the hangar of the helicopter unit in Golubovci, with an area of 1.500 square meters.
In the case of the border crossing "Zatrijebačka Cijevna - Grabon", the object can be seen on Geoportal (geoportal.co.me) and is located on cadastral plots 2434/3 and 2433/4 (cadastral municipality of Gornji Zatrijebač). Such parcels, however, do not exist in the ekatastar.me database, either by directly entering the parcel number and the name of the cadastral municipality or by clicking on the option "find a parcel on eCadastre", on the Geoportal.
In the "Report on the Audit of the Draft Law on the Final Account of the Budget of Montenegro for 2022", which was published last fall, the SAI drew attention to the fact that the audit established that the business premises on Rimski trg, the "Vektra" building, "in which the Ministry of labor and social care, the Ministry of Economic Development and Tourism, the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Capital Investments perform their duties, they are registered in the cadastral records as the property of the business entity 'Vektra Montenegro' DOO".
"During the audit process, it was not possible to determine which authority keeps records of the mentioned business premises, which is why the State Audit Institution refrains from expressing an opinion on this issue," they stated in the audit.
The "Vektra" building is registered in LN 1147 (KO 1330/8, KO Podgorica I) and, according to the cadastral records, only building 3, for the first floor of the basement, is stated to be owned by the Government, i.e. the Ministry of Finance...
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