Harmful Consequences of Non-Transparency in Public Property Management
Transparency Serbia considers as extremely useful that the State Audit Institution audited the purposefulness of leasing public property. The findings of the SAI illustrate well the findings of the Local Government Transparency Index for 2019[1].
TS found that 86.9% of municipality units posted calls for leases on their sites, and that the remaining 13.1% did not, although it is unlikely that they did not have this type of business. However, only 23 cities, municipalities or city municipalities (14.5%) published information on how the competition ended[2]. Things are even worse when it comes to publishing of records of municipal real estate for rent, with at least one of the important elements that we requested (tenant, price, duration), because such information was published in only one case[3].
Report of SAI[4]shows some of the detrimental consequences of this lack of transparency in the disposal of public property. Among other things, the SAI has found that local governments have large uncollected claims (RSD 8.2 billion in 2018) from tenants, leading city of Belgrade and that many of them become obsolete. The SAI also found that recordson office spaceworth EUR 1.3 billion were poor and contract control inadequate. According to the auditors, "Belgrade, Novi Sad and Nis did not document method for estimating the initial rent amount," and cities did not conduct proper marketing to lease the space at the best possible rent.
Transparency Serbia therefore calls on local governments to implement the SAI's recommendations on establishing complete property records, advertising sales so as to collect as many bids as possible and monitoring contract performance. In addition, we consider it necessary for local governments, as well as state authorities, to regularly informabout how the procedures for leasing the property have been carried out and information on the execution of those contracts. The inappropriate handling of publicly owned property, in addition to the SAI reports, was confirmed in the reports of the Anti-Corruption Council.
A new round of Local Government Transparency Index - LTI, will be conducted during January and February 2020 and the results will be announced in May.
[1]http://transparentnost.org.rs/images/stories/LTI2019/LTI%202019.pdf
[2]This information was published by (order by general rank of municipalities in 2019): Paraćin, Užice, VrnjačkaBanja, Leskovac, Vranje, Čačak, Bosilegrad, Senta, Ruma, Novi Bečej, Krupanj, Ivanjica, Pančevo, Čajetina, Ćićevac, Šabac, Aleksinac, Rača, Doljevac, Merošina i Koceljeva. PodatkesutakođeobjavilebeogradskeopštineZvezdara i Surčin.
[3]Some information of this kind were published only by municipality Paraćinhttp://www.paracin.rs/files/opstina/2019/imovina.pdf.
