Centre for Civic Education (CCE) has analysed the current functioning of the Budget Inspection, and its findings raise serious questions about the readiness of institutions to ensure the lawful, proper, and accountable use of public funds. This mechanism should serve as one of the key safeguards against abuses in the public sector.
At the end of January this year, Montenegro closed Chapter 32 (Financial Control), and the European Union highlighted the importance of the new Law on Budget Inspection as well as the need for its consistent implementation. However, the Ministry of Finance’s practice appears to disregard these recommendations.
In response to a Freedom of Information request submitted by CCE for the Budget Inspection’s 2025 annual report, the Ministry of Finance stated that the document was “being drafted.” CCE recalls that the Law on Budget Inspection clearly stipulates that the Chief Budget Inspector must submit the annual report to the Minister of Finance by 15 January of the current year, meaning that this legal requirement has not been fulfilled. Moreover, the report remains unavailable to the public even after the end of the first quarter of the year.
It is also telling that the Budget Inspection Supervision Plan for 2026 was published on the Ministry’s website only after CCE submitted its Freedom of Information request. This confirms a pattern of reactive rather than proactive transparency, where information is disclosed not in a timely manner but only under external pressure.
CCE also stresses that the Budget Inspection’s handling of initiatives pointing to possible irregularities remains selective and often produces no visible outcome. For example, in June 2025, CCE submitted an initiative requesting an inspection of RTCG regarding allegations of irregular management of public funds in that institution. Although confirmation of receipt was sent promptly, with an indication that the inspection would be carried out in due course, there is still no publicly available information indicating that the inspection was ever carried out. Similar patterns have been observed in relation to other initiatives, underscoring both the Budget Inspection’s lack of transparency and the absence of clear criteria for selecting entities subject to supervision.
An analysis of the Budget Inspection’s supervision plans for 2024, 2025, and 2026 also points to a trend of declining transparency. While the plans for 2024 and 2025 included an overview of individual entities subject to supervision, areas of control, timeframes, and implementation dynamics, the 2026 plan has been reduced to general formulations and the total number of planned inspections. As a result, the level of detail that previously enabled more meaningful insight into priorities and work dynamics has been removed, representing a step backwards in terms of the Budget Inspection’s accountability to the public.
Additionally, the possibilities for externally assessing the Budget Inspection have now been narrowed, particularly with regard to whether controls are being directed toward entities and areas posing the highest risk, and whether initiatives indicating irregularities have any bearing on the planning of inspections. This opens up space for arbitrariness and selectivity, contrary to the principles of integrity on which the financial control system should rest. Comparative examples from some countries in the region, including those further behind Montenegro on the path to EU accession, show that budget inspection can be organised in a way that gives the public far clearer insight into procedures, priorities, and results than is currently the case in Montenegro.
CCE notes that the 2025 Supervision Plan did not identify insufficient staffing as a distinct risk, even though in practice it was clearly evident. It was only in the 2026 Plan that this issue was included in the risk register, seemingly in a purely technical manner, after the European Commission had also pointed out that some of the planned positions remained unfilled. However, the way this issue is meant to be addressed appears superficial. Specifically, the response to the identified risk states that the Draft Budget Law for 2025 envisaged funds to strengthen the Budget Inspection’s capacities. Given that this concerns the 2026 Supervision Plan, the fact that reference is still being made to last year’s draft budget, rather than to the already adopted 2026 Budget Law, further illustrates the overly formalistic approach to this issue.
It is also concerning that the Ministry of Finance did not provide CCE with data confirming whether funds earmarked to strengthen the Budget Inspection’s capacities had in fact been secured and allocated, nor what had actually been implemented on that basis. This raises the question: does the reference to “planned funds” reflect a genuine commitment to strengthening the Budget Inspection’s capacities, or merely an administrative postponement of a long-recognised problem? At a minimum, accountability requires that the public be informed of what has actually been done on that basis.
CCE recalls that the closing of Chapter 32 cannot substitute for measurable results in practice. On the contrary, it entails an additional obligation on institutions to demonstrate reform progress through the consistent implementation of laws, stronger institutional capacities, and full transparency in their work.
As long as clear and comprehensive answers regarding the Budget Inspection’s work, priorities, and capacities remain absent, there are justified grounds to suspect that progress is being recorded through the bureaucratic fulfilment of obligations rather than through the genuine functioning of the financial control system.
Jovana Radulović, Programme Assistant