Auditors to be checking how parties spend money

BELGRADE - A special team of at least six auditors will be tasked with controling how the parliamentary parties in Serbia are spending the money they receive from the state coffers, Belgrade-based daily Novosti reports in its Tuesday issue.

The State Audit Institution (DRI) will draw up a plan of checks by the end of October or beginning of November, but the list of those who they will be checking will remain secret.

DRI Council Chairman Radoslav Sretenovic said for Novosti that the institution would choose several parliamentary parties to check and in 2015, the audit team would be checking annual financial reports of the parties at the parties' headquarters, and also their spending during electoral campaigns if elections happen to take place.

We have already reached agreements in principle with audit institutions in Montenegro, Croatia and Israel, which have experience in this type of control, to help train our team, Sretenovic said.

"We are yet to establish the criteria for auditing the parties. Perhaps it will be the ones that receive the biggest amounts of money from the budget, but it is possible that the list will also include some smaller parties or even entire coalitions," said Sretenovic.

The database of parties' financial activities will remain at the Anti-Corruption Agency, to which all parties are required to deliver annual reports.

Photo Tanjug, R. Prelic (archive)