Awaiting the results of the census: The tender for the software has not yet been announced, because the committee is still not fully formed

The commission for monitoring the establishment of software for verifying data collected during the population census is still not in full composition, which is why the tender for the procurement of that software has not even been announced. One member of the opposition is missing, and because of this, the co-chairman of the Census Monitoring Committee from the Movement Europe will now ask for a session of that parliamentary body to be held next week.

"After the previous member of the commission resigned, in my opinion without a reason, I expected, in accordance with the concluded agreement with the prime minister, that the opposition would delegate a new member by now. I don't know the reasons, but I think that the opposition is trying to somehow obstruct further proceedings obtaining results on the basis of data collected by census in the field," says MP Darko Dragović from PES.

With the explanation that the Commission did not implement the obligations defined by the Government's decision, the president of that body, Boris Marković from the DPS, submitted his resignation at the end of December, without further explanation. Co-chairman of the Census Monitoring Committee and Marković's party colleague, Nikola Rakočević, says that a new member of the commission will be delegated when the Commission and its obligations are legally defined, as provided for in the Agreement between the Government and the opposition.

"The set of laws that will monitor and ensure full transparency of the census process is being finalized, it will be in the procedure very soon, and after that it will be adopted in the case of Montenegro, and in this way the conditions will be created for the opposition to have its representative in the commission for software, which will mean in the final that we have developed software," Rakočević said.

He expects that the set of laws, agreed with Monstat, will be before the deputies during this month. Commenting on Monstat's allegations that, due to the delay in the procurement of the software, the results of the census will be delayed, Rakočević claims that the opposition is constructive.

"If the opposition is to blame, to the fact that there is no delegated member in the software commission, we accept it. We accept it, very soon we will change it in such a way that we will have adopted laws that are important, as we agreed with Monstat, so that every citizen would be convinced that the census process was brought to an end in a transparent manner," Rakočević said.

Dragović confirms that both Monstat and the opposition have been correct in monitoring the census so far.

"However, only after the board session is held, we will know more information about the motives and explanations why DPS has not delegated a new member of the commission so far," he said.

According to Dragović, the session of the Census Monitoring Committee will most likely be held on Thursday or Friday.