Podgorica, (MINA) – Director of the Network for Affirmation on Nongovernmental Sector (MANS) Vanja Calovic Markovic, acting as a Council Member at the Anti-Corruption Agency (ASK), tried to secure a special status for herself and her NGO, contrary to the applicable law, the ASK has stated.
The Administrative Court overturned earlier the ASK’s decision on the basis of which Markovic Calovic was dismissed from the ASK Council.
The anti-corruption authority has said that, pursuant to the Administrative Court’s ruling, the institution has once again clearly established the existence of a conflict of interest and a breach of the Anti-Corruption Law by Calovic Markovic in the period while she performed the office of a Council Member at the ASK.
The ASK argues that Calovic Markovic did not perform her public office in public interest, but exclusively in the interest of her private business plans, which is contrary to Articles 7 and 8 of the Anti-Corruption Law.
“By doing so she generated revenues on several grounds, significantly increasing her income, while at the same time receiving remuneration from the Agency in which she had managerial rights,” the ASK says in a statement, adding that in 2016 and 2017 Calovic Markovic generated net income of around €54,500.
The statement explains that the MANS Director had signed an agreement with the EU Delegation in Montenegro, committing to file reports with the ASK against public institutions in relation to the election process, which brought the NGO €149,000 in revenues.
According to the ASK, all 2,346 reports filed with the ASK during the 2016 election process were unfounded and unsubstantiated, submitted ‘with the purpose of securing personal gain and fictitiously justifying the funds received from donors’, rather than being aimed at improving the work of the ASK or pointing out to wrongdoings in the election process.
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