The parliamentary working group discussed recommendations from the OSCE/ODIHR Final Report on the general elections held on 16 October 2016, in the part referring to the financing of the election campaign.
At the session of the working group for amending electoral legislation, representatives of the State Audit Institution (DRI) proposed a series of solutions that would, as they believe, improve the existing Law on Financing of Political Entities. The most controversy was driven by the proposal that the DRI does not control all political parties, but only the largest ones. The remaining parties would be controlled according to the risk assessments in the case when the costs of audits are greater than the benefits.
Among other things, the working group member Genci Nimanbegu asked about the results of the audits.
“Last year there were audit revisions into 22 political entities and three parties received negative opinions. This year one political entity received negative opinion and at least three more will receive the same. There were no consequences. It happened that some of the parties received negative opinion for three years in a row and held no consequences,” said member of the DRI Senate Nikola Kovacevic.
Asked if the work of the DRI in this part is meaningless if it does not produce results, Kovacevic said that DRI had a role of a whistleblower, which informed the public of the findings of control.
