Representatives of 14 non-governmental organisations (NGO) have signed a Memorandum on establishment of the Coalition for Transparency and Fight against Corruption at the Local Level, with an objective of, as it was stated, strengthening of transparency and responsibility of institutions in areas of particular risk for this negative occurrence.
Memorandum was signed by Centre for Civic Education (CCE), Centre for Monitoring and Research (CeMI), UL-Info from Ulcinj, Institute Alternative (IA), Za Druga from Petrovac, Centre for Development of Non-Governmental Organisations (CDNGO), Juventas, Bonum from Pljevlja and Active Zone from Cetinje.
Coalition is comprised also of Democratic Centre of Bijelo Polje from Bijelo Polje, Centre for Investigative Journalism of Montenegro (CIJ MNE), Union of Medical Doctors of Montenegro, Centre for Security, Sociological and Criminological Research ‘Defendology’ from Niksic and Monitoring Group Ulcinj – MogUL.
CCE Executive Director, Daliborka Uljarevic, clarified on the press conference that strategic goals of Coalition for Transparency and Fight against Corruption at the Local Level are strengthening of transparency and responsibility of institutions in areas of particular risk for corruption, strengthening capacities of civil society organisations and institutions for fight against corruption, as well as raising the level of informing, awareness and activism of citizens.
She stated that in the forthcoming period, the focus of Coalition will be monitoring and improvement of existing policies and mechanisms for prevention and fight against corruption in various levels.
’Our organisations deal with various thematic areas and we will try to homogenize these existing capacities and potentials, in order to have as much as efficient response’, clarified Uljarevic.
She assessed that results relating to the fight against corruption, will affect progress of Montenegro in European integration.
’Vision of our Coalition is Montenegro as an open society of active citizens and the rule of law. Focus will be on strengthening of civic awareness, civil sector and overall capacities of society in the fight against corruption at local, but also on national level, since these levels are quite often intertwined’, pointed out Uljarevic.
’European Union (EU) has confirmed its commitment to the European perspective of Western Balkans, but has simultaneously stated that this is conditional and that it will depend on results that are achieved in individual countries aspiring to be members of EU, as well as that the civil society and independent media have special importance in the process of democratisation’, said Uljarevic.
CeMI President of the Management Board, Zlatko Vujovic, stated that this NGO will through this project contribute to development of reports at local, and at national level, thanks to investigative capacities that they possess.
’Application, that CeMI will develop, in cooperation with CCE, will enable everyone to report corruptive acts in a simple manner. Everyone who has a smart phone can photograph, record audio, video recording immediately and report the complete case. After this report is received, we will process it and in this manner enable citizens to report cases of corruption’, clarified Vujovic.
According to him, the latest report of the European Commission was quite bad, and he pointed out, as he recalled, that Montenegro has dysfunctional institutions.
’The forthcoming period will be rather important from the aspect of compliance with conditions from the Chapter 23, i.e. results that Montenegro will fulfil, as conditions in the process of European integration’, said Vujovic.
President of Union of Medical Doctors, Milena Popovic Samardzic, said that this union organisation intends to, via project ’Profession before Politics’, for which they acquired funds from CCE, point out to abuse of healthcare system.
’Our objective is to, in cooperation with CCE, make problems in healthcare system more visible, a system which is quite closed and it is hard to reach real, actual problems that exist within it’, pointed out Popovic Samardzic.
This objective, as she estimates, can be most efficiently realised ’if initiators themselves belong to this system’.
’For this purpose, technical, but also any other logistical support is of great significance, considering that we want to deal with topics relating to systemic corruption, starting with the public procurement, employment, awarding of specialisations, appointing directors and other managerial cadre’, clarified Popovic Samardzic.
President of Centre for Security, Sociological and Criminological Research of Montenegro, Slavko Milic, believes that strengthening of capacities of organisations, dealing with issue of corruption and prevention of the same, is of particular importance for each of these organisations.
’Laptops that we received, will help us to strengthen our technical capacities, primarily in fight against corruption, but also to follow activities in the field. Laptop is suitable for field work and it will contribute for those who actively work on suppression of corruption, its monitoring, recording and work on the field itself, to gain certain information and to place them more easily, but also to analyse the results’, said Milic.
Coalition for Transparency and Fight against Corruption at the Local Level is a part of activities of project ’Let’s Put Corruption Into Museum!’, which CCE conducts in partnership with NGO Centre for Monitoring and Research (CeMI), NGO Bonum from Pljevlja, NGO UL-Info from Ulcinj and NGO Za Druga from Petrovac, in cooperation with the Ministry of Public Administration and the Agency for Prevention of Corruption (APC), and with the financial support of the EU Delegation to Montenegro, and represents the third phase of a wider programme of CCE with the aim of contributing to reduction of corruption at the local level.