Anti-Corruption Agency: Vlahović’s appointment to Deposit Protection Fund board breached public interest — corruption suspicions

The Agency for the Prevention of Corruption (ASK) has found that the Steering Board of the Deposit Protection Fund wrongly determined and calculated the work experience of candidate Vojin Vlahović — a former close associate of Milo Đukanović — when it appointed him executive director in 2021, in breach of the public interest.

According to the Agency, the Board wrongly determined and calculated the candidate’s work experience. The competition required five years of work experience with higher professional education (VSS), but the documentation submitted by Vlahović — employment decisions at the PIO Fund, government appointment decisions, a copy of his work booklet and his CV — did not prove that this requirement had been met. It lacked certificates from previous employers that would unequivocally confirm the mentioned jobs had been performed at the required level of educational qualification.

Ines Mrdović of Action for Social Justice (ASP) told the RTCG portal that, according to ASK’s findings, the work booklet and/or its copy as a document attached to the competition documentation cannot be considered proof that the requirement regarding the required work experience at the necessary level of qualification was met.

ASK assessed that the failure to carry out a detailed verification of the complexity level of the work experience led to a decision being made on the basis of a not fully established factual situation, which as a consequence harmed the integrity of the institution. The Agency recommended to the Steering Board of the Deposit Protection Fund that future decisions on appointing the executive director be made in a way that does not raise doubts about the existence of corruption risks and does not call the institution’s integrity into question.

Source: RTCG