Forum of Jurists: We support state authorities' fight against corruption in NGO sector

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The Forum of Jurists of Serbia (Forum Pravnika Srbije) has announced that, as a non-governmental organization (NGO), it offers full support to the state authorities fighting corruption in the NGO sector.

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They recalled that with the development of democracy and legal regulation in Serbia, according to the data from the Serbian Business Registers Agency (APR), over 36,000 non-governmental organizations are registered, most of which deals with human rights, democracy, electoral process, and EU integration.

According to statistics, the NGO sector in Serbia annually receives over 150 million euros for its activities through donations, grants, project co-financing, while some of these organizations receive between 5 and 10 million euros in donations annually from foreign funding sources, and others even more.

"According to Serbian regulations, non-governmental organizations are under obligation to report any type of donation, that is, the financing of their work, and this is where the question of the origin of money, possible abuses, and transparency arises," said a statement.

Some non-governmental organizations, for the sake of more transparent work, practice publishing information on their websites about the projects they are implementing, who supported them financially and with what amount, the Forum stated, and pointed out that on the other hand, there are also those NGOs that try to keep the public in the dark regarding their work and funding.

The Forum added that even though balance sheets and success reports can be found on the APR website, this does not mean that the work of a non-governmental organization and its financing is completely transparent, because there is always room for a corrupt criminal act to be committed, and financial reports to be falsely presented, especially in those organizations whose funds amount to several tens of millions of euros.

The Forum further pointed out that based on the review and analysis of the data, more than half of the total money invested in associations, foundations and non-governmental organizations, more precisely 150.8 million euros, went to organizations registered in the territory of Belgrade, while Novi Sad is second. Organizations based there got slightly more than 22 million euros, which represents almost 7.8 percent of the total money.

"An example of this is the attack by a certain part of the NGO sector on the chief public prosecutor of the Higher Public Prosecutor's Office in Belgrade, Nenad Stefanovic, and the head of the Special Department for Suppression of Corruption, Jelena Milutinovic Ziljkic. This office took actions based on the Law on Public Prosecution, the Criminal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure in order to collect evidence of possible misuse of funds received from USAID," the statement stressed.

The Forum added that it is common practice that when checking the legality of work, financing and transparency of the NGO sector, it "defends itself" by claiming that the state is going against them, hoping to create an impression among the public that some reason other than investigation into corruption is hidden behind the checking of their operations and of the potential commission of some corrupt criminal acts.

(Telegraf.rs/Tanjug)