Law on State Company Management comes into effect – Transparency Serbia warns of risk of corruption

The Law on the Management of Companies Owned by the Republic of Serbia is coming in effect today, and Transparency Serbia (TS) estimates that the law leads to a risk of corruption, because the newly appointed company managers (General Assembly members, Supervisory Board members, directors and acting directors) will not have the obligation of filing reports on the property and the income, nor will other rules from the Law on Prevention of Corruption apply to them.

– This kind of a situation will last until the concept of a public official is changed in the anti-corruption law, that is, until the consequences of the unfounded authentic interpretation that the Assembly adopted in February 2022 are removed – the press release says. As explained, based on that interpretation, the concept of an official is additionally bound to the organ that appoints the official.

The list from the authentic interpretation features the Government (which now appoints members of the Supervisory Board and the director of a public enterprise), but not the ministers of economy and energy, which, according to the new law, will appoint General Assembly members, or General Assembly members, which will appoint supervisory boards, or supervisory boards, which will appoint directors.

According to the TS, the fact that the rules for appointing acting directors are not clear pose a great danger and it could easily happen that they are interpreted in a way that would make the situation even worse than it is now.

The Law on Public Enterprises limits the total length of the acting director mandate (whether it is one or more acting directors) to one year, and the new law does not explicitly proscribe that.

– As for the potential benefits from the Law coming into effect, they pertain to the establishment of some rules that have not existed before when it comes to public enterprises which do business in the market, to which the Law on Public Enterprises did not apply (for example, Telekom), and the establishment of rules regarding the mandatory training in the field of corporate management – said the TS.

Transparentnost Srbija Beograd

Transparency Serbia

TS

Law on the Management of Companies Owned by the Republic of Serbia

Law on Prevention of Corruption

Law on Public Enterprises