No international standard, best practice, or recommendation will support the ban on the abuse of official vehicles, if the state does not show strong political will, real commitment and readiness to confront illegalities in that area and stand up for the protection of public resources and the legal and responsible disposal of official vehicles .
This was assessed in the opinion published yesterday by the Agency for the Prevention of Corruption, which refers to the Regulation on the conditions and manner of using means of transport owned by Montenegro.
"The figure of about 4.000 vehicles owned by the state opens up space for serious analysis regarding the rationalization of the vehicle fleet, especially bearing in mind the costs of acquisition and maintenance, as well as the hiring of employees who drive those vehicles. In addition, official vehicles, as one of the public resources, represent a common good, so the state and the people who manage it have a duty to use them legally, guided by the principle of rationality in a way that provides optimal results with minimal resources and costs. Additionally, the general interest of the public is that public resources are not used and misused for private purposes and outside of working hours, but specifically in the manner prescribed by positive legal acts", the opinion signed by the Acting Director of the Agency emphasized. Dušan Drakić.
Abuse of official vehicles for private purposes is a problem that citizens have been warning about for years. Officials and officials often use official cars on non-working days for shopping, going out of town, and even moving.
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Governments change, but this practice remains the same. In the last few months, the media reported on several traffic incidents, which were caused by public officials and civil servants with official vehicles, and the public does not know whether and in what way the state sanctioned them. A certain group of officials, in accordance with the regulations, has the right to permanent use of an official car, and through internal acts, many other public officials also appropriated this right for themselves, although there was no reason for it.
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The government did not turn to risks
The document also points out that on November 27, the Agency submitted a Draft Opinion to the Cabinet of the President of the Government of Montenegro and the General Secretariat of Montenegro, in order to familiarize them with the detected corruption risks in the norms of the Regulation and possibly indicate the valid regulations and procedures that ASK should take taken into account when formulating the final final evaluations, but that the Agency did not receive feedback from those addresses until the publication of the opinion.
"Professional and lay public often point to irregularities in the use and manner of using official vehicles, to which, as a rule, there was no appropriate institutional reaction. Doubts that official vehicles are not used in accordance with the legislative framework that governs this area are increasing, and media reports and reports about their excessive use, use for private purposes, use outside of working hours, illegal parking and other abuses, while at the same time the question of how much does the state have official vehicles at all, who controls their proper use and is it really necessary for public sector institutions and administration to own such a large number of vehicles", the Agency explains.
They allege that the Government, during the process of preparing the draft law on the budget for 2024, in the Information on the establishment of an interdepartmental working group with the aim of optimizing the management of the vehicle fleet, stated that by the time the information in question was prepared, there were over 4.000 official vehicles in the ownership of Montenegro.
"And noted that the same requires significant financial allocations for the purchase and maintenance of the fleet of state institutions. In that document, it was noted, among other things, that there is no uniform procurement policy for the use of official vehicles, the need to optimize, improve and make efficient the management of existing official vehicles owned by state institutions is recognized. Thus, in the conclusions adopted at the Government session of October 19, 2023, the Ministry of Finance was tasked with informing the Government of Montenegro to form an Interdepartmental Working Group and to inform the Government about activities. Further data on the work, undertaken activities and work results of that working group are not available," the Agency's document states.
It is not known what and whose "official needs" are
From that anti-corruption institution, they state that the Regulation was passed with the aim of regulating the use of vehicles belonging to the state, providing rules that will ensure their responsible, efficient and legal use of those vehicles.
"When it comes to Article 5 of the Regulation, it stipulates that means of transport are used on the condition that an official need or a need within the authority of the authority has been determined by the elder who manages the authority... However, what is recognized as a deficiency is the definition of the basis for the use of vehicles, i.e. the definition of the term 'official need', i.e. 'need from competence', as these legal terms, instead of the necessary precision, can lead to different interpretations in practice in everyday application", warns the Agency.
They believe that a prerequisite for household use of that resource is transparency in the allocation of vehicles, i.e. publication of the names of employees who have the right to use an official vehicle, an explanation of the reasons - "official needs" and "jurisdiction needs" for which they were allocated, as well as regular reporting on vehicle maintenance costs and fuel consumption.
"Articles 11 and 13 of the Regulation clearly provide who are the persons who have/can have the right to permanent use of an official vehicle with or without a driver, and that, except for vehicles that are given for permanent use, and after the completion of official work or other tasks from under the jurisdiction of the authority, official vehicles park in the place determined by the authority's act, there are numerous cases in practice in which employees and elders of the authority, without a clear need, use the vehicles continuously, which leads to abuses", the Agency emphasizes.
Therefore, they recommend, it is necessary to define in more detail the method of controlling the application and compliance of this act, establishing an internal and external control system for the implementation and application of this act, in order to ensure a high degree of responsibility and prevent further misuse of this public resource.
"It is desirable to consider stronger promotion of the existing Platform for reporting suspected misuse of official vehicles so that the Government of Montenegro shows its readiness to involve the widest circle of the public in order to protect the common, proper and household use of public resources. This implies fast and effective action on submitted reports in order to eliminate suspicions of illegal and unethical use of vehicles", the Agency points out.
Recommendations
Although the Regulation provides a framework for the responsible use of vehicles on state property, its application in practice indicates the need for additional clarifications and controls, the Agency's position is.
They specify that a clearer definition of criteria for the use of vehicles, specification of procedures and the introduction of additional monitoring mechanisms can significantly contribute to a more efficient and responsible use of official cars, but also to the reduction of opportunities for abuse.
"In this regard, it is necessary to urgently enter into the process of creating an appropriate legal framework in this area and, first of all, to define the obligees, the concepts of 'official need' and 'jurisdictional need' which, due to different interpretations and applications, can lead to abuses when determining the right to use official vehicle", recommends the Agency.
They also believe that it is necessary to determine the obligation to publish the act of the Government of Montenegro, which determines the number of vehicles that authorities can use, which would increase transparency in the way these public funds are distributed and used.
"It is necessary to determine the mandatory elements that the travel order should contain, to introduce the obligation of its regular publication, as well as the obligation to publish fuel consumption and other costs related to vehicle maintenance, which would lead to greater transparency and faster detection of possible irregularities and abuses in connection with the use of the vehicle, and it would facilitate both internal and external control of the use of official vehicles, as well as the control of fuel consumption and other costs related to the use of official vehicles", the Agency's opinion specified.
They believe that it is necessary to eliminate the recognized shortcomings of the platform for reporting suspected misuse of official vehicles.
"Serious commitment in this area, recognition of the importance of establishing an efficient system of control, monitoring and optimization of the use of official vehicles, as well as the consistent implementation of all necessary policies and measures that will guarantee the responsible management of public resources, will have a positive effect on the budget of Montenegro, and what is special importantly, it will contribute to increasing the responsibility of the persons who dispose of public resources, and will ultimately lead to an increase in public trust in state institutions", the Agency concludes.
Everyone must have the obligation to publish travel orders regularly
The Agency has repeatedly noted that in practice it often happens that other forms of travel orders are used instead of the prescribed ones.
"In this regard, it is necessary for the authority responsible for the adoption of this Regulation to recognize the mechanism for eliminating the observed practice and thus unify the order form for the use of vehicles. Additionally, in the Decree it is necessary to recognize the mandatory elements that the travel order should contain, to determine the obligation to publish it, not only from the day of the announcement until the day of the election, as provided for in Article 43 of the Law on the Financing of Political Entities and Election Campaigns, but as a regular obligation, to foresee the obligation to publish the monthly and annual fuel consumption for the use of official vehicles, as well as to prescribe whether a travel order is issued for vehicles that are given for permanent use... The above would enable faster detection of possible irregularities and abuses in connection with the use vehicles, and it would facilitate the internal and external control of the use of official vehicles, as well as the control of fuel consumption and other costs related to the use of official vehicles", the Agency said.
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