9 former ministers in Montenegro accused of corruption, none Albanian

 

 The Special State Prosecutor's Office in Montenegro has filed charges against nine former ministers and three other individuals on suspicion of abusing their official positions during the allocation of housing and housing loans, Euronews Albania says.

Journalist Bekim Çoba, in an interview with Euronews Albania, stated that there are no Albanians among the defendants.

Furthermore, he emphasized that political party officials benefited from housing, despite having a monthly salary of 5,000 euros.

"There are no Albanians among the defendants. It mainly involves the leaders of the Democratic Party (PD) and the Socialist Party (PS), as well as their allied parties, which we consider more as satellite parties than independent parties. There is a large number of people who have benefited from housing. Not everyone has benefited in the same way as the officials because some of them were in need. Ministers have benefited more than one housing unit. Some of them had an income of 5,000 euros per month and still applied for housing assistance from the government," he said.

The accused ministers were members of the Government Commission for Housing Issues, which, in addition to government members, also allocated housing and loans to representatives of other powers, such as deputies, judges, and prosecutors, local media reports.

The State Prosecutor's Office accuses them of granting loans for improving housing conditions beyond the prescribed amount, up to 15,000 euros, without evaluation by the expert commission of the former Property Administration.

The Prosecutor's Office also emphasizes that individual loans in the amount of 40,000 euros were granted to officials who requested 30,000 euros from the Committee to meet their housing needs.

"Of course, exceeding the submitted requests is contrary to the law on administrative procedure and the legal practice of the Administrative Court of Montenegro," said Prosecutor Radoniq in the press release.

This also applies to the example where the former President of the Supreme Court, Vesna Medenica, requested 30,000 euros in assistance, while the Commission decided to grant an additional 10,000 euros.

The Prosecutor's Office also found that the government of Dusko Markoviq, during the period 2016-2020, approved the Commission for the granting of these loans.