In less than three weeks, on July 24, it will be two years since I was elected to the position of director of the Agency for the Prevention of Corruption. From the first day, together with the members of the Council whose trust I gained, I was aware that the Agency, as one of the key creators of preventive anti-corruption policies and responsible for their implementation, if it wants to influence the organization of a society that strives for European values, it must first organize its own backyard.

For this purpose, we undertook a large-scale and complex intervention that entailed breaking up with certain bad practices and conducting radical structural and personnel reforms. Legality, non-selectivity, transparency - we repeated these principles as a mantra and integrated them into our activities. The achieved results encouraged us and confirmed that we are on the right path, which was recognized by our international partners, first of all the European Commission, and President Radulović will talk about this later.

We have repeatedly mentioned to the public what pressures we were facing. We managed to resist, and thereby set an example for other institutions on how to preserve independence and integrity in the mission of protecting the public interest and promoting the rule of law and the principles of good governance. Although certain interest structures are still trying to influence us and obstruct our work, we want to believe that this practice is slowly becoming the past.

We do not allow ourselves to be deceived and lulled by the previous achievements, but we see room - both in the legislative framework and in the institution itself - for additional progress. The reforming of the Agency is still ongoing, because only by constantly striving to change and adapt, and all on the basis of preserving fundamental values ​​and principles, can we respond to the challenges and needs of the community. That is why, with the support of UNDP, we adopted and started implementing the Strategic Plan for the period from 2022 to 2024, which opened a new period in our development, determined priority tasks and the ways in which we will achieve them. In cooperation with the Council of Europe, the development of a new Communication Strategy is underway, which will help us identify our own needs more clearly, be as effective as possible in raising the level of awareness and resistance of the general public to corruption, continue developing cooperation with the media, the civil sector and other state bodies.

In addition, with the help of the Embassy of the United States of America, we started the process of introducing the ISO 9001 quality management system.

I will remind you of the statement from the last unofficial working document on the progress of Montenegro, that “efforts to prevent corruption continued to improve, through a positive trend in the work of the Agency for the Prevention of Corruption”. We have carried this positive trend from 2021, which was the most effective in practically all segments since the establishment of our institution, to the first half of 2022.

Moving in the legally defined space, we want to make the most visible contribution to the improvement of anti-corruption policies. In this direction, with the support of the Council of Europe, we carried out the first of the three planned phases of the analysis of the Law on the Prevention of Corruption. The remaining two will be completed by the end of the year, after which it will be decided whether to draft a new law or amend the existing one.

In cooperation with the UNDP Program, we are intensively working on the development of the Methodology for the analysis of regulations in order to determine the areas at risk of corruption, especially the part related to the list of risks, for the purpose of easier and more objective identification of future regulations that would be the subject of the Agency's analysis.

The most significant result of the project is a comparative analysis on the need to introduce corruption risk assessment as a mandatory part of the legislative process, and the creation of a Checklist for preliminary control of corruption risks.

Recognizing the special importance of the analysis of regulations as a strong anti-corruption mechanism, in the first half of 2022 the Agency issued an opinion on a total of 17 regulations, which is an increase of 70% compared to the whole of 2021, and equal to the performance of the previous four years in total.

Based on the opinion of the Agency, the 43rd Government of Montenegro announced the cancellation of the Decision on the method and criteria for solving the housing needs of officials. After our reaction, the Public Invitation to take the bankruptcy administrator knowledge test was renewed, while several public companies adopted new regulations that, unlike the previous ones, do not contain corruption risks. We are dedicated to achieving at least one small victory every day. Each of these victories is a step forward in strengthening the environment of the rule of law and the adoption of rules of conduct and standards that will contribute to the path of our society towards the ultimate strategic goal, accession to the European Union.

In presenting the results of our work in the first half of the year, allow me to refer to the statistics. Due to violations of the provisions of the Law on the Prevention of Corruption, from January 1 to June 20, 2022, the Agency submitted 690 requests to initiate misdemeanor proceedings to the competent misdemeanor courts.

In the same period, the misdemeanor courts imposed fines in the amount of EUR 37,750 based on the request of the Agency.

In the first half of 2022, acting on all the requests received, the Agency issued 108 opinions on the existence of conflicts of interest and restrictions on the exercise of public functions. This is the result of an intensive campaign aimed at strengthening the awareness of public officials regarding compliance with the obligations prescribed by the Law, as well as increasing trust. Based on the opinions and decisions of the Agency, eight public officials resigned.

In the first six months of 2022, 81 whistleblower reports were submitted to the Agency. 16 proceedings were completed, and in two cases, it was established that the public interest was endangered, which points to the existence of corruption. At the same time, the Agency initiated seven ex officio proceedings due to the suspicion of endangering the public interest, which points to the existence of corruption. In three cases, it was determined that the public interest was threatened, which points to the existence of corruption.

The number of initiated administrative procedures in the six-month period is 401, the highest since the Agency was founded.

In partnership with the Office for European Integration and UNDP, and with the support of the Embassy of Norway, we developed a Methodology for assessing the application of anti-corruption measures, with the aim of improving the content and effects of integrity plans. In the pilot phase, the methodology was applied to authorities from two sectors: state administration and social and child protection. Individual reports were prepared for all those who participated in the project, as well as two sectoral reports, which also contain ranking lists of authorities in relation to their performance in the application of anti-corruption measures. The authorities are already working on the implementation of the recommendations contained in the aforementioned reports.

All of the above was done in the circumstances in which we are dealing with an unusual challenge. You are aware that due to the postponement of local elections in 14 municipalities, the election campaign has been going on for more than two months and will last until the end of October. Because of this, we are forced to direct a significant part of our personnel capacities to the supervision and control of the campaign, which requires enormous energy and engagement of our employees, and which could affect the quality of the work process in other segments of our activity. We hope that future amendments to the Law on Financing of Political Entities and Election Campaigns will provide an appropriate solution to eliminate this legal gap.

Finally, with gratitude to international partners and the media for the hand of trust and fruitful cooperation, I assure you that the Agency for Prevention of Corruption will remain committed to the mission that is summarized in the title of the brochure you received today - to be the foundation of a responsible society.