Interview with Dirk Thompson, June 2005

How would you characterise the project in terms of progress (or lack of so)? Did the project reach it's overall goal(s)?

The project started slowly and had difficulties in the first month. Our impression was, that the Prime Ministers Office, which was our partner in the beginning, had other priorities in that period of time. For this reason the GTZ team looked for an interested partner which it found in the Parliament. The parliament offered an office for the project team and established the contact to the Board for Finance which is responsible for everything related to public finance.

The project was beginning to show progress, when the Board for Finance officially took over the responsibility for drafting a law on a Supreme Audit Institution in Montenegro and commissioned the Inter-Institutional Working group that had been established for this purpose.

Today we can say, that the project progresses very well and that the German side is very satisfied with the results already achieved. We are very optimistic that the project will reach its overall goal until the end of 2007.

In your opinion, what made this project successful or less successful?

The success of the project is mainly due to the fact that on the Montenegrin side we found motivated, qualified and ambitious partners. Namely the Chairman of the Board for Finance and now the President of the SAI Montenegro are to be mentioned.
Additionally, it seems to be helpful that the project lasts for several years. Therefore GTZ is able not only to initiate the process of drafting the legal basis but can also follow its implementation.

Are there any particular project highlights you would like to mention?

It might be interesting to note, that the Law on SAI Montenegro was a so-called parliamentary initiative, meaning that one Member of Parliament submits the draft and initiates the legislative process. This showed how much importance the Parliament accorded to this law and to the project.

We were positively surprised when we were informed that the Senate of the newly created SAI decided to realize the audit of the financial statement of the Republic already in their first year of existence.

Can you point to any lessons learned?

One of the main lessons learned is that the Institution of the parliament is often neglected from the international community and that in some contexts it is worth cooperating with Parliament. As the overall goal of this project is to create a strong audit Institution that would be an information tool for the Parliament, it was only consequent to get the Parliament as the main partner.

During the implementation of the project, a lot of contacts were established and a lot of different issues concerning the development of the parliament as a constitutional power have been discussed, which has contributed to the awareness of MPs and the staff for the necessity to strengthen the professionalism of the work of Parliament.

Where can one get more information on this project?

For further information, please contact the Team leader in Podgorica:
Bianca Breteche
Project officer Podgorica
Hercegovacka 10, 2nd floor
81000 Podgorica
Serbia and Montenegro
Tel./Fax: +381-81-667-280 /667-281