1. Public enterprises and public administration– outlawed management and citizens’ attempts to curtail it
- Author:
- Nemanja Nenadic
- Publication Date:
- 07-2022
- Content Type:
- Case Study
- Institution:
- Belgrade Centre for Security Policy (BCSP)
- Abstract:
- How citizens can point out irregularities in the work of public enterprises and public utility companies, which operate in a very non-transparent manner in Serbia, read in the case study written by the Program Director of Transparency Serbia, Nemanja Nenadić. Public enterprises and public utility companies in Serbia make a significant share of the country’s economy (23% capital of Serbia’s economy), and they employ over 165 thousand people. Therefore, it is not a surprise that they are at the same time one of the main strongholds of party control over public sector and corruption. As Serbia was gradually passing the regulations that rendered uncontrolled recruitment to civil service and local administration more difficult, public enterprises were getting more attractive for partisan staffing, expecting sure votes in the elections in return. For the purposes of electoral campaigns or political promotion, the use of public enterprises’ resources is sometimes so obvious that there are even reactions from state authorities, not just angry citizens. Partisan and other forms of unnecessary employment also make use of frequent amendments to internal organisation and job systematisation acts. Other forms of abuse in public enterprises, which come in handy to party and other abusive purposes, reflect in redundant or rigged public procurement procedures, as well as numerous situations when money is spent without even conducting procurement procedures. Not too seldom, public enterprises, being more flexible in expenditures that typical budget beneficiaries, assist the work of “suitable“ media through advertising, or, through alleged commercial sponsorship and “corporate social responsibility“ do covert budget financing, which is not visible in the final balances. It is important to say that, when regards state-owned enterprises at various levels, it is actually several types of economic operators. The number of state-owned enterprises used to be several thousand. Most of them were sold or went bankrupt during the last decade of the previous century and the first decade of the current century. The state has retained ownership in some companies competing in the market, either because nobody wanted to buy them, due to the lack of commercial (or political) interest or waiting for a good opportunity to sell. Besides commercial enterprises, which are state-owned though they needn’t be, there are also public undertakings (in a narrower sense of the word) the operations of which are regulated by a specific law. Those are companies performing the so-called “activities of common interest“, so the state is ready to maintain their existence even when they generate losses. Also, there many public enterprises that are monopolies and prominently dominant in the market, which enables their profitability. Some of them are organised as “public“ or “public utilities“, and others are shareholders’ companies or limited liability companies, which may lead to their sale. Currently there are 34 such companies at the central level, AP Vojvodina being the founder of three, while there are about 700 local public companies. The attempt to entirely hide the operations of many state-owned companies from the public, by amending the Law on Free Access to Information of Public importance planned in 2018 and 2019, with awkward justification, was prevented by the brisk response of domestic civil society and opinion of SIGMA’s experts going in the same direction.
- Topic:
- Public Sector, Transparency, Social Roles, and Civil Services
- Political Geography:
- Europe and Serbia