After almost a decade and a half of ignoring the regulations, in May of last year, the list of land and buildings owned by Montenegro was completed and an electronic database, the register of state property, was created. Almost 2014 euros were paid for the development of that software back in 200, but the registry is still not functional as planned.
Listed state property does not yet contain information about its value.
Register of state property obligations is established by the Law on State Property from 2009. One of the obligations was the acquisition of an integrated information system for the unique record of state property, with the aim of having accurate insight into the state of both total property and property by individual bodies at any time, and to quickly and efficiently dispose of accurate and complete data.
For this job, the private company "Atos" from Belgrade was hired as the only bidder in the tender that was announced at the end of October 2014. They were paid 199.800 euros, and the deadline for fulfilling the contractual obligation was September 2015.
Koča Đurišić, who was the director of the Administration for Cadastre and State Property, told "Vijesta" in March of last year that upon arriving at the Administration, he did not find anything that the law prescribes when it comes to the register, and that the software from 2014 "never it didn't work".
The SAI reports show that the system was not established in the way that was foreseen by the contract, that the Ministry of Finance did not sign the annex(es) of the contract after the deadline for the performance of the contracted obligation. In the final report on the audit of the management of the Real Estate Register of State Property from the year 2023, the SAI states that "the integrated information systems SAP FI-AA module, until the end of the audit procedure or June 2023, was not established in the manner foreseen by the description and specification of the project, which is an integral part of the Agreement and it was not possible for the Administration for Cadastre and State Property and state authorities to use it operationally in the intended scope".
Activities to improve the functionality of IT solutions for state property management and data quality are planned by the Public Finance Management Reform Program for the period 2022-2026. year. 500.000 euros of funds from the budget have been earmarked for this purpose.
Open data "on hiatus" for almost two years
Over 33 thousand euros have been invested since 2017 in the creation and maintenance of the Open Data Portal (data.gov.me), where no new data sets have been published since May 2022.
Three contracts were signed for various tasks - creation, maintenance and vulnerability analysis of the portal, the last one in 2021. As of May 2022, however, nothing is happening at data.gov.me.
In the meantime, the MJU announced the creation of a new portal and said that the Ministry, in this regard, has the expert help of Canadian experts hired by the National Democratic Institute (NDI).
They did not make a concrete decision about it, and as they stated in their reply from February 22, that work is in the first phase of implementation.
"There is no concrete decision on creating a portal because the need for an open data portal stems from a large number of strategic documents that are part of the official policies of the Ministry of Public Administration," said the department.
The deadline for the completion of the new portal, they added, is by the end of the fourth quarter of the current year.
The first contract, then for the establishment of an open data portal, was signed in 2017 with the company "Smart Tech" from Podgorica. Portal data.gov.me presented in July next year.
According to available documentation, the contract worth 14.042 euros (including VAT) was signed by the secretary of the Ministry of Public Administration (MJU), Vesna Ćalović.
Two years later, that department hired the same company for the improvement and maintenance of the portal for 14.497 euros (including VAT). The new contract was signed by then minister Suzana Pribilović.
In the documentation that was submitted to the editorial office at the request for free access to information (SPI), there is also a third contract, which was signed in 2021 by the then Minister of Public Administration, Digital Society, Culture and Media Tamara Srzentić with the company "Codingo". The contract, as stated in the documentation, referred to the service of analyzing the vulnerability of the open data portal with the service of raising the security level and removing identified vulnerable points. The company "Codingo" was paid 4.501,20 euros (including VAT) for that job.
The MJU, which is headed by Maraš Dukaj in the current and previous governments, said that the deal was concluded after "CEED Consulting" doo from Podgorica conducted research for the needs of that department, in order to identify key deficiencies in the functioning of the portal.
“As well as sets of missing commonly used open data, clearly distinguishing between open data and data and information obtained under the SPI Act. Given that it was not possible to redesign the portal, the project began to create a new one, and the new portal was published on May 26, 2022 and configured on the MJU production server. It functioned until the cyber attack at the end of August 2022," they state in the response.
The latest datasets on data.gov.me, however, were released three months before the cyber attack. The public administration department did not explain what happened in those three months - which is why there were no new entries from May to August 2022.
According to the data announced by the Ministry of Justice after the cyber attack, until that critical event, 20 institutions published 197 sets of data from 15 areas on data.gov.me.
Although still publicly available and non-functional, the open data portal also has an option for user registration. When asked what the registration is for and how many users are registered, Maraš Dukaj's department answered briefly: "We don't have the data."
Paper still valid
For licenses and maintenance of the electronic document management system (eDMS), according to contracts from the public procurement portal (cejn.gov.me), from 2017 to 2022, more than 678,5 thousand euros were paid.
Those jobs were awarded to the companies SRC System Integration from Belgrade, and S&T Montenegro, Digit Montenegro and Čikom from Podgorica.
In October of last year, a new contract worth 429.550 euros (including VAT) was signed with Čikoma, and this deal was concluded for the development and maintenance of the eDMS system, as well as the management of the process of electronic meetings of the Government of Montenegro.
System for electronic exchange of documents, as stated in the annual reports of the public administration department and the Digital Transformation Strategy of Montenegro 2022-2026. from December 2021, is one of the key Government services that enables the improvement of business processes by gradually moving from paper to electronic document management.
The goal of introducing that system was faster exchange of information, reduction of paperwork and greater security when storing documents.
With the realization of that project, the then Ministry of Information Society and Telecommunications, which was led by Vujica Lazović, as stated in various reports, started in October 2009, and the system for electronic document management was established in 2011.
According to the Information on eDMS adopted by the Government in December 2023, that system was implemented in 23 institutions.
In the same document, it was also stated that eDMS and systems for managing the process of electronic sessions and for digitally signing documents "operate on outdated platforms, for which support has expired and which cannot be upgraded".
"For the stated reason, new systems will be established, based on the most modern technologies and in accordance with the best world practices and international standards that govern this field and the field of information security," the document states.
In the same information, the Government stated that the establishment of the system is planned for the first quarter of 2024.
Laris useful, but not mandatory
In 2019, the Community of Municipalities and UNDP started work on the "Efficient and Transparent Local Self-Government" project, within which LARIS, an integrated local revenue administration system, was developed.
A public call for software development was announced in May 2020 by UNDP, and the job worth 148.725 euros was then entrusted to the company "E Smart" from Serbia.
The Association of Municipalities said that they started the project "primarily because the SAI repeatedly pointed out to the municipalities the shortcomings of their software".
When asked about the number of municipalities that use LARIS, they did not provide precise data, but said that the majority of municipalities use the software in its entirety, that some apply it partially, and that a smaller number do not use it at all.
"This is because they previously developed their software. Namely, the unique software is not yet an imperative obligation, but a matter of the municipality's decision and compliance with the recommendation of the SAI", they state in the answers.
In the Report of the SAI on the thematic audit "Collection and recording of own revenues in local self-governments", published in 2021, it was stated that the special software used by some municipalities does not allow the recording and separation of local public revenues by year and that in some municipalities the software does not exist at all, but revenues are recorded in Word or Excel.
"After reviewing the functionality of the LARIS software, the SAI recommended all municipalities to use LARIS for the sake of simplifying and improving the tax procedure, easier communication and lower costs for taxpayers," says the SAI report.
The Association of Municipalities said that this recommendation was accepted by some municipalities that had not used LARIS until then, "so, for example, during 2023, the Municipality of Ulcinj became one of the beneficiaries, while the Municipality of Bar showed interest in using the largest number of modules".
Questions about whether they use LARIS were addressed to all local governments. The answers were submitted from the municipalities of Bijelo Polje, Cetinje, Rožaje and Tivat.
Judging by the answers, the municipalities that use it are satisfied with the software, although they use it in different ways. They also state that this software provides them with the possibility of networking with other public registers, which are important for the calculation of local revenues.
Tivat offers online tax payment
Among the municipalities that use LARIS and that have submitted an answer in this regard, only Tivat offers citizens the opportunity to pay for services online.
"It is possible to pay online real estate taxes, tourist taxes and road fees, but it does not rely on the Laris program. In the future, we will try to improve the online payment system in cooperation with Larisa", said the Municipality of Tivat.
The Municipality of Bijelo Polje says that citizens are not interested in online payment.
"As for online payment, we do not practice it yet, due to lack of interest of citizens, because they prefer to pay at our cash desk or with field workers in charge of collection," said the Bjelopolje Municipality.
In the Municipality of Cetinje, they say that online payment would be desirable and that it would also be good if the system was connected to the electronic ID card (eLK), which the Ministry of Internal Affairs has been issuing for three years.
The Capital City did not respond to questions about the use of the LARIS system. By inspecting the platform, after logging in, it is registered that the button for online payment exists, but does not work.
In the Information on the status of the project "eServices and digital infrastructure as a response measure to covid-19", which was adopted at the Government session on December 21, last year, it is stated, among other things, that the online payment of real estate taxes with the Capital has been stopped "until overcoming certain challenges that followed the organizational changes that followed, both at the local and central level".
Through the Capital City's LARIS system, in addition, in the part related to real estate tax, even though it is possible, the electronic version of the decision cannot be downloaded.
The electronic version of the solution can be obtained on request via e-mail.
UNDP and EU assistance
For various activities carried out through the project "E-services and digital infrastructure in response to COVID-19", the United Nations Development Program in Montenegro (UNDP) with the support of the European Union, allocated about 824 thousand dollars for three years.
The project started in January 2021 and ends at the end of this year. By the end of last year, 622,88 thousand was spent.
According to data from the website of the UNDP in Montenegro, through that project, 2021 euros were paid in 92.875 for consulting services to the firm CEED, which analyzed the open data portal.
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