The police have filed criminal charges against two companies and five individuals from Bijelo Polje, on suspicion of damaging the budget by almost 200 thousand euros by fictitiously employing people with disabilities. For years, the Fund for Professional Rehabilitation and Employment of Persons with Disabilities has been paying out millions of euros, but not always to those for whom the aid is actually intended.
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Excessive wages, fictitious employment and abuse of the law, at the same time, threaten to close down small workshops that genuinely employ people with disabilities.
New criminal charges for misuse of money from the Fund for Professional Rehabilitation and Employment of Persons with Disabilities are just confirmation of an already well-known practice, claim a part of the NGO sector, where they say that private companies and some non-governmental organizations are involved in the fraud, but not without support "from above". Two companies and five individuals from Bijelo Polje are suspected of damaging the budget by almost 200 thousand euros by fictitiously employing persons with disabilities and then requesting and receiving state subsidies for it.
"All these abuses of PWDs and their employment could not be done without the approval of people at the top of the government. So, people at the top of the government allow this robbery of citizens' funds and citizens' money is spent unnecessarily in this way," said civil activist Milorad Mitrović.
The Fund for Professional Rehabilitation and Employment of Persons with Disabilities previously announced that the highest salary paid on this basis was 5540 euros, while the lowest was 250 euros.
High salaries and misuse of money have led to problems for small organizations that employ people with disabilities, because they cannot function without state support.
"We are shutting down, thanks to abuses. Why abuses, because someone allowed them to do so, because it is not in the interest of someone in power to limit or introduce regularity in payments," said Milka Stojanović, the patron of the Bijelo Polje workshops for people with disabilities.
By law, employers can receive subsidies of up to 75 percent of the gross salary of employees with disabilities, with no limit on the salary amount or the total amount of the subsidy. Because of this legal loophole, some employers and disabled people overstate their salaries for the sake of subsidies.
"I received information that one employer pays for five workers with one payment of subsidies for people with disabilities," said Dušan Rakočević from the Mojkovac Association of the Disabled.
"It's impossible to find a job, that's why people with disabilities agree to this type of financing. You give me 300 euros, the rest goes back to the employer, and the employer pays the rest of the workforce with the money from the disabled," added Stojanović.
Recently, "Vijesti" reported that 33,1 million euros were spent last year on employment subsidies for people with disabilities, and another 21 million on monthly benefits for unemployed people with disability certificates. The largest number of abuses was observed in Rožaje and Berane, which also have more registered people with disabilities than all other municipalities combined.
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