Montenegro

Integrity and Capacity Assessment of the Local Self Governance in Montenegro

Complicated procedures and regulations, as well as high cost services are the most common occurences in the work of local self governance organs, whereas bad attitude of clerks towards service beneficiaries and non-transparency are the least common ones - it was revealed through a research titled “Integrity and Capacity Assessment of the Local Self Governance in Montenegro”, conducted by the Center for Economic Development and Entrepreneurship (CEED) for the needs of the Directorate for Anticorruption Initiative (DACI) and UNDP Montenegro.

Some of the key recommendations from the Research are to: a) insist on educational campaigns for citizens about their rights, better informing efforts regarding the main jurisdictions and activities of the local self governance, as well as about the possibilities of filing complaints in case of dissatisfaction with work and attitude of local self governance organs and their representatives; b) further professionalize clerks in regard to their relations with service beneficiaries; c) simplify procedures for issuing building permits; c) better control the efficiency of clerks; and to d) publicly announce and prosecute the corruption cases discovered.

At the presentation of the results of the “Capacity and Integrity Assessment of the Local Self Governance” Research, Ms. Vesna Ratković, Director of the Directorate for Anticorruption Initiative (DACI) said: “Since recently, anticorruption activities that DACI is conducting include researches that discover the scope, manifestations, causes and mechanisms of corruption in some segments of the legal system. Let me remind you that this was one of the recommendations of the Council of Europe’s Group of States against Corruption (GRECO), and it was determined by the Action Plan for the implementation of the Programme for fight against corruption and organized crime as a continuous Directorate’s obligation.” Ms. Ratković also said: “Our very good cooperation with the UNDP since last year has been confirmed in the field of research as well. In October 2008, after we achieved very important results with the ‘Integrity and Capacity and Assessment of Judiciary in Montenegro’, we decided to immediately start with a new one, which would have in its focus another important system – the local self governance. Today, we are presenting the results of a research on the functioning of this system, in terms of quality of work, clerks’ relations with citizens, accuracy, transparency and presence of corruption, as well as in terms of adequate recommendations for the relevant organs. The important international criteria were respected in regard to the categories of interviewees, so that - beside citizens - the employees from the local self governance organs participated in the research. As this research comes at the moment when a certain number of municipalities are finalizing their work on Action Plans, we believe that these results will be of a great benefit.”

Dragan Pejanović, Assistant to the Minister of Internal Affairs and Public Administration for Local Self Governance Control said: “The Action Plan for the Reform of Local Self Governance (LSG) in 2009 in Montenegro, adopted by the Government early this year is a document that establishes a good basis for successful improvement and development of local self governance, as well as a platform for combining a significant number of priority goals, clearly defined tasks, deadlines and responsible parties. With an aim to support the measures for implementing the Programmes for fight against corruption and organized crime, the Government has developed a Model Programme and a Model Action Plan for fight against corruption in LSG 2008 – 2011. Working groups have been formed at the LSG system level, to prepare local programmes and action plans for fight against corruption in line with the suggested Models. The Interministerial Committee has been established within the Ministry for Internal Affairs and Public Administration, with an aim to supervise the realization of the action plans, and to prepare regular midyear reports about the implementation of measures from the AP for the Government, based on the municipalities’ reports.” Mr. Pejanović pointed out that the continuation of activities for simplifying procedures and regulations, strengthening of internal control and the quality of law implementation will contribute to the elimination of negative occurrences such as corruption.  “I believe that this research will give further stimulus for creation and implementation of adequate measures and strategic responses of the local self governance in the process of strengthening capacity and integrity of local self governance in Montenegro,” Mr. Pejanović concluded.  

Mr. Francisco Roquette, UNDP Deputy Resident Representative said: “This Capacity and Integrity Assessment should provide the review of LSG sector and enhance the development of Municipal Anti Corruption Action Plans. Given the commitment of 21 Montenegrin municipality to formulate their anti corruption strategies and thus enhance their efforts to curb this social anomaly as well as to complement the similar efforts on the national level by the National Commission – this assessment should provide the respective authorities with valuable inputs for development of strategic documents.” Mr. Roquette also said: “DACI has been strategic UNDP partner and it has been a true leader in these pioneering activities in the fight against corruption. Furthermore, UNDP has been supporting DACI through the integration of UN resources in the areas of legal reviews, research designs, capacity and organizational development, as well as public advocacy. In parallel, UNDP supported the cooperation of civil and public sector, which resulted with the Manual for the design of Municipal Anti Corruption Action Plans, hence - one of the aspects of this assessment is to enhance the work in this domain.”   

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Within the framework of the UNDP Country Programme Action Plan signed with the Government of Montenegro, the fight against corruption has been defined as one of key corporate priorities. UNDP Anti Corruption project is an operational framework for the support to the governmental and civil society anti corruption initiatives, legal review and corruption assessments. In this regard, UNDP has been very active in supporting development of public sector capacities, aligning the anti corruption legislation with UN Convention against Corruption, conducting in depth research on roots and manifestation of corruption as well as endorsing anti corruption initiatives of the civil sector.

Capacity and Integrity Assessments are some of the main features of the UNDP Anti Corruption project, aiming at scanning the specific state sectors and providing useful information as a basis for designing anti corruption interventions. The entire research component of the UNDP Anti Corruption project has been envisaged as one of key programmatic interventions, aiming at producing the necessary data for benchmarking the process of anti corruption efforts, measurement of their success, explanation of the roots of corruption problems and their manifestations, and to back the parallel UNDP programmes and Governmental activities. In addition, those data are crucial for assessment of problems, formulation of systematic interventions and evaluation of their impact.

LSG Assessment Report
Izvjestaj Ocjena integriteta i kapaciteta u lokalnoj upravi u Crnoj Gori