Officials will no longer have to report the assets of children who have left the household, deposits in foreign banks and assets abroad, shares and stakes in companies, or trusts that are most often used to hide assets, and the Agency for the Prevention of Corruption is not obliged to check the lifestyle of officials.
Instead, the Draft Law on the Prevention of Corruption introduces a solution according to which legal restrictions do not apply to “public officials who perform their functions on a non-professional basis”.
According to the Network for the Affirmation of the Non-Governmental Sector (MANS), this means that a pensioner or employee of a state institution can be on multiple boards of directors of state-owned companies.
"Disgraceful," says MANS director to "Vijesti" Vanja Ćalović Marković.
She reminded that, prior to the adoption of the current Law on the Prevention of Corruption, the Government had a set of amendments that were sent to the European Commission for consideration, but that since June the public has not had information about whether and what response the EC has given to the proposed solutions.
"Vijesti" expects answers from the Ministry of Justice, which is headed by MANS, regarding the shortcomings of the Draft Law. Bojan Božović.
"It's truly shameless. First of all, it's shameless because we managed to deal with it during the DPS period, and then those who are now in power were very vocal in criticizing the solution that one person can sit on dozens of management boards. Second, what is even more hypocritical is the fact that this government has become known for political hiring and 'deep-rooted' infiltration. Now, not only does it not want to eradicate this, but it also wants to provide officials with as many management boards as possible, as was the case several years ago," emphasizes Ćalović Marković.
She recalled the example of a former high-ranking state and DPS official. Branimir Gvozdenović.
"A specific example - Branimir Gvozdenović was on several management boards... He was simultaneously on the management boards of the Electric Power Company of Montenegro and the Aluminum Plant, in the Tender Commission... That is what the Draft Law aims to achieve. What is more important is that such officials will make important decisions," warned the MANS director.
SPAJIC AND BECIC INSISTED IN JUNE, BUT...
According to Ćalović Marković, he is particularly concerned that, despite the fact that the Government, led by Prime Minister Milojko Spajić and Vice President Aleksa Bečić, adopted amendments to the current Law, because it was already known in June that there were shortcomings, those proposals by the executive branch were not used at all in the preparation of this Draft Law.
"These are government amendments that relate to reporting children's assets and after they leave the joint household, there is no obligation to report a significant portion of officials' assets, control of officials' lifestyles... Essentially, the changes to the law represent a cosmetic reform, we are already returning some benefits to officials that they lost a long time ago, and we do not have any measures that would prevent conflicts of interest and corruption," Ćalović Marković points out.
He says that the Government has never announced whether and what kind of response we received from the EC regarding these amendments.
"The Prime Minister publicly promised that the law would be changed once we received the EC's opinion and that the amendments that the Government had already adopted at that time would be adopted. The Ministry of Justice Working Group did not take these amendments into account at all, nor did it include these proposals in the Draft Law," said Ćalović Marković, adding that MANS prepared a set of amendments and sent them to the Ministry of Justice, because once again we do not have a serious reform of the anti-corruption law.
WHAT DOES IT SAY IN THE DRAFT?
The main novelty introduced by the Draft Law is the elaborated manner in which the Agency will have access to the bank accounts of public officials and their household members.
In order to verify the data from the Report, the Agency has access to data on the accounts of public officials and members of a joint household referred to in Article 25, paragraph 1 of this Law with credit institutions and other financial institutions.
"The right of access is granted to the responsible person - the director of the Agency, the authorized officer conducting the procedure in a specific case, as well as the authorized officer who, according to the job description, processes the personal data of public officials. The data may be used only for the purpose of verifying the data reported in the report and may not be used for other purposes."
The Agency shall keep records of personal data provided to it for use, according to the purpose for which they were provided and the legal basis for their use. The data may be stored in electronic form in the Agency's database on a protected server... The data referred to in paragraph 3 of this Article shall be stored for five years from the date of data collection, and electronic data for ten years from the date of execution of the payment transaction, or from the change in the payment account of the payment service user, in accordance with the law governing payment transactions," the Draft Law states.
This document also stipulates that, if the Agency suspects that property is being transferred to related persons, the public official is obliged to submit personal data for those persons within the deadline and in the manner determined by the Agency.
"The Agency may request the submission of a report on assets and income from a person related to a public official. A person related to a public official is obliged to submit a report on assets and income without delay upon the Agency's request."
The draft law was subject to public debate until the end of January.
What did the government propose this summer?
During the session at the end of May last year, when the set of IBAR laws was being considered, the majority of government members criticized the draft regulations on preventing corruption, which were then being worked on by Andrej Milović's department.
The Venice Commission also had objections to most of these regulations, especially the amendments to the Law on the Prevention of Corruption, assessing, among other things, that the draft remained basically the same as the law that was in force until June, with several adjustments.
The Government then acted with amendments, but the Parliament adopted the original Bill. The Government said that they had sent their amendments to the EC. They proposed, among other things, changing the definition of a gift to include the recommendations of Council of Europe experts, i.e. that a gift should include the write-off of loans, debts and release from obligations, as well as services and the provision of certain benefits. The definition of property also proposes the inclusion of deposits, as well as property abroad, such as deposits in foreign banks, shares and stakes in companies, but also trusts that are most often used to hide property and are not required to be registered.
It has also been proposed to introduce an obligation for public officials to report any form of property change. According to the previous interpretation of the ASK, public officials did not have to report the sale of some real estate and the money they received for it.
One of the government's amendments was to reinstate the previous law's requirement to report any property gains exceeding 5.000 euros in a separate report. It was also proposed that public officials be required to report their children's property even if they do not live with them in the household.
Public officials, as stated, were required to report all forms of digital assets that could represent a financial interest or potential conflict of interest in the performance of their official duties.
The Agency was also required to initiate proceedings or submit information to the competent prosecutor's office in cases where the lifestyle of officials significantly deviates from their official income.
"It should be prescribed that lifestyle monitoring includes comparing reported income and assets in relation to spending habits, housing conditions and assets of public officials, married and common-law spouses and children. Additionally, it is prescribed that the Agency can also collect information from other sources about the so-called lifestyle of officials, which includes other data available to legal or natural persons that show consumer habits, i.e. on the basis of which the disposition of certain assets can be determined," the remarks state. .
It is envisaged to introduce new competences for the Agency Council to decide on appeals against decisions of the Director, as well as to remove the statute of limitations in accordance with the recommendations of the Venice Commission and civil society, as well as with the Government's commitment to zero tolerance for high-level corruption...
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