My Town About My Money Report on the Reforma Javnih Finansijaopenness I of Poreskalocal Tajna: Budgets Kroz Prizmu Opštinskog Duga
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GDJE IDE MOJ NOVAC MY TOWN ABOUT MY MONEY REPORT ON THE REFORMA JAVNIH FINANSIJAOPENNESS I OF PORESKALOCAL TAJNA: BUDGETS KROZ PRIZMU OPŠTINSKOG DUGA This Project is fnanced by the European Union and co-fnanced by the Ministry of Public Administration of Montenegro. Ministarstvo javne uprave Publication: My Town About My Money (Report on the Openness of Local Budgets) Publisher: Institute Alternative 57, George Washington Boulevard Podgorica, Montenegro Tel/Fax: (+382) 20 268 686 E-mail: [email protected] For the publisher: Stevo Muk Editor: Milena Muk Researcher: Naziv Velić Research assistants: Nikoleta Pavićević and Almedina Dodić Design and prepress: Ana Jovović Podgorica, February 2019. Ministarstvo javne uprave This Report was prepared within the project “Money Watch: Civil Society Guarding the Budget”, implemented by the Institute Alternative in cooperation with the Institute of Public Finance and NGO New Horizon, supported by the European Union and co-financed by the Ministry of Public Administration. The contents of this Report are the exclusive responsibility of the authors and in no way reflect the opinion of the European Union or the Ministry of Public Administration. CIP - KAТАЛОГИЗАЦИЈА У ПУБЛИКАЦИЈИ НАЦИОНАЛНА БИБЛИОТЕКА ЦРНЕ ГОРЕ, ЦЕТИЊЕ ISBN 978-9940-533-78-6 COBISS.CG-ID 39197200 2 TAB LE OF CONTE NTS Introduction ............................................................................5 Overview of transparency results, by municipality ......................................7 Andrijevica .........................................................................7 Bar ................................................................................. 8 Berane ............................................................................. 8 Bijelo Polje ......................................................................... 9 Budva ..............................................................................10 Cetinje ............................................................................. 11 Danilovgrad ........................................................................12 Herceg Novi ........................................................................12 Gusinje ............................................................................13 Kolasin ............................................................................14 Kotor ...............................................................................14 Mojkovac ..........................................................................15 Niksic ..............................................................................16 Petnjica ............................................................................17 Plav ................................................................................17 Pluzine ............................................................................17 Pljevlja .............................................................................18 Capital City of Podgorica ...........................................................19 Rozaje ............................................................................20 Tivat ..............................................................................20 Ulcinj ..............................................................................21 Savnik .............................................................................21 Zabljak ............................................................................22 3 From transparency to openness: Public consultations on local budgets ................ 23 What next? ...........................................................................26 Recommendations ................................................................27 Local self-governments’ web presentations: ...........................................28 4 INTRODUCTION Providing reports to the public and making budget documents available to citizens - these are the prerequisites for more open local self-governments and more accountable public fnance. However, these issues do not receive suffcient attention in Montenegro, in particular at the local level. The discussion concerning good local governance tends to be limited to the needs to rationalise public spending and optimise staff numbers, with offcial requirements posed to Montenegrin municipalities often disregarding the issue of public fnance transparency. For this reason, this Report focuses on the key issues of local fnance transparency, through an assessment of compliance with the minimum standards related to publication of core budget documents. Article 12 of the Law on Free Access to Information lays down a proactive approach to information and requires the authorities to publish some categories of information.1 These requirements apply only marginally to public fnance information, except for stating the obligation to publish all draft laws, Government-approved proposals for laws, individual documents and contracts on the management of public revenue funds and state property. The application of the arrangement under the new Law on Local Self- Government Finance represents potential progress in this regard. In line with the Institute Alternative (IA) recommendations, the Law lays down the obligation of the municipalities to post their budget decisions, decisions amending the budget, decisions on the fnal budget account and quarterly reports on total revenues, expenditures, outstanding liabilities and budget debt on their webpages.2 Taking note of the IA suggestion,3 the 2018–2020 National Action Plan for Implementation of the Open Government Partnership Initiative in Montenegro includes a measure concerning the development of “Citizens’ Budget”, requiring local self-governments to prepare them based on the template to be provided by the Union of Montenegrin Municipalities. According to the Action Plan, these brochures should be used in the course of public discussions on local budgets for 2020 and should also be posted on 1 / 1) Access to Information Guide; 2) public registries and public records; 3) work programmes and plans; 4) reports and other documents on the performance and status in their respective areas of competence; 5) drafts, proposals and fnal versions of strategic documents; 6) drafts, proposals for laws and other regulations, and expert opinions on such regulations; 7) individual documents and contracts on management of public revenue funds and state property 8) list of civil servants and state employees, with their titles; 9) list of public offcials and calculations of their wages and other income and benefts stemming from public offce; 10) decisions and other individual documents of relevance for the rights, responsibilities and interests of third parties; 11) information to which access has been granted following an application to that effect 2 / Law on Local Self-Government Finance (Offcial Gazette of Montenegro 003/19 of 15 Jan 2019). 3 / https://bit.ly/2Wui9bG 5 the municipalities’ webpages. The same Action Plan envisages standardisation of municipal web portals based on the standardised guidelines for designing such portals, as well as monitoring of the implementation of such guidelines.4 This research gains importance in the context of the commenced implementation of the new legal provisions and strategic measures, as it serves as a baseline assessment of local public fnance transparency. Aiming to present the current situation and highlight the importance of proactive publication of information concerning local budgets, the IA - together with the NGO New Horizon from Ulcinj and with expert assistance provided by the Public Finance Institute from Zagreb - conducted a comparative survey and analysis of the webpages of the 23 local self-government units in Montenegro. In order to ensure quality control of the online data collection process, the website search according to pre-set criteria was organised in two rounds, with preliminary results compiled in September 2018 and verifed in December 2018. The Draft Report was shared with all of the participating local self- governments in early February 2019. Six of them provided feedback (Bijelo Polje, Bar, Ulcinj, Rozaje, Kotor and Podgorica), which also contributed to quality control and verifcation of the data included in the Report. The research aimed to identify to what extent citizens were able to access the following documents by navigating the municipal web presentations: Draft Budget Decisions for 2018; Budget Decisions for 2018; Decisions on the Final Budget Account for 2017; Biannual Budget Execution Reports for 2017 and Citizens' Budget Guides. For the purpose of the survey, the Citizens' Budget Guide implied presentation of budget documents in a user- friendly form and a simple format, ft to facilitate comprehension and discussion by the citizens. These did not include introductions, summaries or explanatory notes accompanying the budget documents; instead, these were completely new, simpler and more accessible texts. The key budget documents to be presented to citizens included the following: budget guidelines: proposed budget; adopted budget (in the voting procedure); budget revisions; monthly, biannual and annual reports on budget execution. During the survey, the focus was on the presentation of draft and adopted budget decisions in the format of citizens' guides, as the minimum requirement in this regard. It was also assessed whether the documents had been published in a machine-readable format, i.e. one