The Report on the activities of the Council in 2010 and the biggest problems in its functioning

The Anti-Corruption Council on 18th March submitted to the Government the Report on the activities for 2010. Besides the review of the activities undertaken during the past year, the report specifically points out the problems in its functioning.

The biggest obstacle in the work of the Council is the refusal of the authorities to provide the requested information. Because of the refusal of the Securities Commission to provide documentation regarding to taking over the shares of the companies "Knjaz Milos" and "Novosti", the Council was unable to finish a report on these cases. After the Council filed a criminal complaint against 17 ​​persons for abuse in taking over the Port of Belgrade, including the President of the Securities Commission Milko Stimac, the Commission has stopped submitting the required documentation to the Council, or it delivered it in parts, with a delay, and on the intervention of the Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information. The largest part of the documentation related to taking over "Novosti" and "Knjaz Milos" has not yet been submitted to the Council, despite repeated orders of the Commissioner.

Another major problem in the functioning of the Council is big number criminal charges and lawsuits against the Council by individuals mentioned in our Reports.

Without investigating the specific phenomenon of systemic corruption and making it public of the problems identified, it is impossible to perceive the extent and key features of the problem of the corruption, nor to design and conduct an effective anti-corruption fight. Common criminal lawsuits and charges for defamation, filed because of the facts which the Council came to in its research and presented them to the public, are an attempt to prevent the investigation of corruption and making it public. And the Government encourages these attempts by refusing to take a stand on the pressures against the Council.

In recent years the Council has delivered all of its reports to the Government, the public and the Prosecutor's office.

However, the Prosecutor did not prosecute the cases of systemic corruption, which the Council analyzed in its reports, and which also the Administration for Fighting Organized Crime (UBPOK) led the investigation on and came to the conclusions about serious illegalities (preferencial sugar export to UN countries, bankruptcy and sale of "Sartid", the establishing and operation of the "Nacionalna stedionica", etc...). Now it provides, in relation to the findings of research on the phenomenon of systemic corruption, prosecutions on the libel, as in the case of lawsuits that Milan Beko and Miodrag Kostic run against the Council.