Source: "Pregled"
Memorandum of Cooperation in the fight against corruption signed
Belgrade
The Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection, Rodoljub Sabic, and the representatives of the Public Procurement Directorate and the State Auditor Institution signed a Memorandum of Cooperation yesterday with an aim of improving joint activities in the fight against corruption. The President of the State Auditor Institution Council Radoslav Sretenovic emphasized that the main goal of this project is establishing responsibility and transparency, in order to strengthen the control and supervisory mechanisms of public fund spending. “Taking into consideration the available personnel capacities, the financial audit of the final Serbian budget balance for 2009 will be a priority, as well as the use of public funds by the National Bank of Serbia”, said Sretenovic. An initiative related to the obsolescence of offences has been put forward, he said, since the audit can only start once the final draft of the Serbian budget balance is submitted, around June 16, which would mean that all the offences that have been committed before the same date last year would become obsolete.Rodoljub Sabic said that it is important to control the public procurement processes through which a large amount of state funds that are used primarily by the state are redistributed. The Chair of the Public Procurement Directorate Predrag Jovanovic reminded that, in 2009, the Directorate forwarded 56 reports of inconsistencies in public procurement processes conducted as urgent and valued at a billion dinars to the State Auditor Institution. He also mentioned that the penalties for offenders are between 20.000 and 50.000 dinars for the responsible person, and from 100.000 to one million dinars for the one who made the order.
