Almost 60.000 euros were spent by several Podgorica companies from January to December 2024 on bills for landline phones in offices, as well as mobile phones for employees.
"Vijesti" requested data on consumption for fixed and mobile telephony operators, and the largest consumer was the local "Čistoća", which paid 12.948 euros for this type of service during that period.
The company he heads Dennis Hot It also has the most employees - 649.
As they said, in accordance with the Law on Public Procurement, the company "announced a simple procurement procedure for mobile telephony services" through the Montenegrin Electronic Public Procurement (CeJN).
"The contract for the previous year was signed at the beginning of March for the amount of 12.948 euros including value added tax (VAT), and it includes a package for 350 user numbers and 20 internet packages," they replied.
From the office of the current mayor of Podgorica Saša Mujović They did not answer "Vijesti" about how much his predecessors, managers and administrators spent on landline and mobile telephony last year.
The Podgorica-based company "Vodovod i kanalizacija" has 550 employees, and their mobile phone bill for last year amounted to 11.405 euros.
"The average bill was around 950 euros, in accordance with the annual tender. Apart from the mobile telephony service packages stipulated in the tender, in the past year this company has not paid for the consumption of its employees, while in the previous period this was the case," said the company he manages. Aleksandar Nišavić.
They said that the tender for 2024 and 2025 is more favorable than before, which, they claim, "leads to suspicion that there were certain irregularities in this segment in the previous period."
"The amounts of contracted tenders by year for the period from 2020 to 2021 amounted to 38.873 euros. For the period from 2021 to 2022, this figure amounted to 23.086 euros. In the period from 2022 to 2023, the amount of the bill was 20.585 euros...", said "Vodovod".
They explained that at the beginning of this year they also contracted internet services, which, as they claim, were separate in previous years "and on that basis the tenders ranged for an additional average of around 5.000 euros per year."
"According to certain information, such high tender amounts in the previous period were accompanied by expensive gift phones that were not included in the company's assets, but rather a member of management, who was in charge of monitoring this segment, received these devices and managed them outside the interests of 'Vodovod'. Now that is no longer the case and for this reason, in the previous two business years, significantly lower amounts and more favorable for the company were contracted...", they said.
The Agency for Construction and Development of Podgorica, which he manages Dragan Senic, spent 7.228 euros on mobile and landline telephony last year.
"We would like to inform you that the Agency for Construction and Development of Podgorica had the following expenses in the requested period. We allocated 2.434 euros for landline telephony, and 4.794 euros for mobile telephony," the Agency responded.
From January to December last year, the company "Sportski objekti" spent 9.513 euros on telephone bills. They said that until September last year they used the services of an operator "with whom the previous management concluded a contract."
"The total bill in the said period was 8.206 euros. The package included landline, mobile telephony and internet," they said, adding that from September to December last year they used the services of another operator, so "the total bill in the said period was 1.307 euros."
The local "Zelenilo" allocated 7.838 euros for telephony and internet services last year, the Capital City Housing Agency 6.748 euros, while the "Parking Service" spent more than 4.000 euros on these services.
From Podgorica's "Putevi", headed by Rados Zecevic, said that the public procurement plan for last year envisaged the procurement of mobile phones for official purposes.
"... But the city company 'Putevi', during 2024, did not initiate the public procurement procedure for the same," they replied briefly.
"Putevi", however, did not respond to "Vijesti's" question about whether they even have official numbers and spending on that basis.
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