Official: New Law on Preventing Corruption Will Expand Control

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Agency for Preventing Corruption Director Dejan Damnjanovic said on June 11 that a new law on preventing corruption would expand control to the heads of the president's office and deputy prime minister's office, their aides and ministers' special advisors.

"When speaking about meeting the ODIHR's recommendations, we have proposed that in situations in which we act on a report against a public official and establish that there is no reason to launch a procedure for violating the law on preventing corruption, the director adopts an act which dismisses or rejects a report," Damnjanovic told the NIN weekly.

He said that in this way legal protection is ensured and two levels of decision-making, because the submitter of the report has the ability to have the Council, as a second degree body, decide on the rectitude of the Agency's decision.

He said that the Agency will begin checking reports on the cost of the campaign for local elections held on March 29 in 10 local self-administrations and added that the findings and conclusions of the checks will be published in early September. "We have received 30 reports for this election campaign for violations of the law on financing political activities. We solved all of the reports within the legal deadline. We passed 23 acts with regard to the aforementioned reports of which violations of the law were established in seven," he said.