Transparency Serbia: Combating Corruption Isn’t Priority of Serbia’s Regime

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Transparency Serbia (TS) Program Director Nemanja Nenadic on Feb. 11 said that combating corruption was not a priority of the executive not the legislative branch in Serbia, adding that the recommendations given to Serbia over years had been almost identical, but the situation had remained unchanged.

Nenadic also said that inadequate work of prosecutors was seen by TS as the biggest obstacle to cracking down more efficiently on corruption in Serbia. “Prosecutors do not proactively investigate corruption case, event not in situations when they have enough material,” he said. Nenadic added that the list of main recommendations included functioning institutions and transparent processes of contracting and decision-making.  

He went on to say that while insisting on anti-corruption reforms in Serbia, the EU should change its monitoring system. “Advancements in curbing corruption are measured by a number of corruption charges and convictions, but for Serbia, a right solution would be monitoring documented suspicions of corruption, particularly those potentially involving top officials, which have not been addressed by prosecutors,” Nenadic specified.

One of the recommendations to Serbia which had been repeated, according to him, relates to the absence of systemic monitoring of actions taken upon tips-off by whistleblowers. Nenadic underlined flagrant violations of the existing anti-corruption regulations by public companies and public administrations, stressing that the Government was required to provide access to information of public importance, while a large number of public procurement procedures should be subject to control of the Public Procurement Office, budgetary inspection and the Commission for Protection of Competition.