Efficient Collection of Administrative Fees (ME0060)

Efficient collection of administrative fees
Commencement and completion dates: January 2019 - December 2019
Responsible institution The Ministry of Public Administration The Ministry of the Interior
Commitment
The issue at stake Administrative and judicial fees are a substantial source of revenues for the central and local budgets. Current collection tool does not provide adequate assurances that the fees would be correctly levied, or any traceability of collections. There are no centralised national records of collected fees to enable central and local administration authorities to track and verify collection. Citizens and businesses alike have no single records of all fees they have paid. There are no centralised records of fee collection, which prevents statistical and other processing of fee payment. A substantial percentage of proof of fee payment is presented to administrative and judicial authorities with some formal elements missing (reference to liability number, etc.). There is no comprehensive or transparent solution for “endorsing” the fees paid, which makes it possible to use of the same fee payment slip in another similar administrative or judicial case.
Commitment The National Administrative Fee Collection system (NS-NAT) would remove current problems experienced in administrative and judicial fee collection by introducing a centralised control point and electronic payment by using commercial bank cards and electronic transfers. The main aims the system pursues are as follows: enable monitoring and easy checks of all transactions regarding administrative and judicial fee collection; reduce the misuse currently present in this type of transactions; enable electronic payments, regardless of who bears the commission costs, the service provider or the customer.
How will it help address the issue This new functionality has the imperative of collecting all fees in all administrative and judicial procedures collected and enabling easy to use, consistent and reasonable control of fee collection as its starting point. The proposal is based on the establishment of a central software system and the accompanying database to contain the information on all fees paid and to be able to generate reports as need be. The first segment of the system will include POS terminals and the accompanying software tool (Middleware platform, MP) enabling payment by cards. Additionally, it also includes a separate software module for electronic payments to be called when selecting the payment option at the e-service web portal. The second segment refers to the central application system (CSAT) and the central database installed at the MPA infrastructure. The third segment refers to commercial bank systems enabling processing of transactions and financial services. The system design needs to be developed together with the technical specifications (hardware and software components, CSAT software platform) and POS terminals need to be procured.
Its relevance to OGP values The delivery under this commitment will lead to transparency and efficiency in administrative fee collection.
Additional information Compatibility with SDGs Reference to SDG 16: ‘Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions’ 16.5 – Substantially reduce bribery and corruption in all its forms 16.6 – Develop effective, accountable and transparent institutions at all levels Reference to SDG 17: ‘Partnership for the goals’ 17.1 – Strengthen domestic resource mobilisation, including through international support to developing countries to improve domestic capacity for tax and other revenue collection The actions to be undertaken within the framework of this commitment will contribute to increasing transparency and accountability of public administration by introducing centralised national administrative fee collection records.
BUDGET €150,000
Actions with verifiable results and implementation dates
Establish the national Administrative Fee Collection system (MPA) – €150,000 -Concept Design developed -technical specification for system components developed in line with the Concept Design -a functional system of Administrative Fee Collection in place - number of users (10)
Points of contact
Responsible person in the implementing entity Bojana Bajić, Mirjana Begović, MPA
Title/Department The Directorate for e-Government and Information Safety
e-mail / phone bojana.bajic@MPA.gov.me mirjana.begovic@MPA.gov.me

4. Efficient collection of administrative fees

Language of the commitment as it appears in the action plan:

“The National Administrative Fee Collection system (NS-NAT) would remove current problems experienced in administrative and judicial fee collection by introducing a centralised control point and electronic payment by using commercial bank cards and electronic transfers.

The main aims the system pursues are as follows: enable monitoring and easy checks of all transactions regarding administrative and judicial fee collection; reduce the misuse currently present in this type of transactions; enable electronic payments, regardless of who bears the commission costs, the service provider or the customer.”

Milestones:

4.1 Establish the national Administrative Fee Collection system

Start Date: January 2019                                                               

End Date: December 2019

Context and Objectives

This commitment addresses the collection of administrative and judicial fees for public services. Its main aim is to facilitate review of administrative and judicial fees and thus reduce the misuse of these transactions and enable electronic payments. The National Administrative Fee Collection (NS-NAT) system will enable monitoring and easy review of all transactions related to the collection of administrative and court fees, reduce the number of abuses occurring through this payment system, and enable electronic payments. [17]

This commitment could be important for national and local budgets and improve internal procedures for authorities. However, it mostly involves the digitization of public authorities’ internal work and thus is not directly relevant to OGP values. While it is verifiable and specific, it is only a minor improvement for collecting national and local fees.

Next steps

The IRM does not recommend carrying this commitment forward to the next action plan. Instead, this commitment could be part of the Public Finance Management Strategy. Moving forward, the government could include commitments that more directly address budget transparency. For example, the European Commission notes that line institutions still do not proactively publish budget information, and that mechanisms could be put into place to ensure their publication. [18]

[17] European Commission, “Digital Government Factsheet 2019 — Montenegro” (2019), http://bit.ly/36Z3OIf.

[18] European Commission, “Commission Staff Working Document, Montenegro 2019 Report” (29 May 2019), https://bit.ly/2s0h3KB.

Commitment 4. Efficient collection of administrative fees

Limited

This commitment aimed to develop a National Administrative Fee Collection (NS-NAT) that would help the government monitor all transactions related to the collection of administrative and court fees and enable electronic payment. It mostly involved the digitization of public authorities’ internal work and thus was not directly relevant to OGP values.

During the action plan period, the Ministry of Public Administration, Digital Society and Media prepared a concept plan for the NS-NAT. Based on the Program of Economic Reforms in Montenegro for 2021-2023 (published in May 2021), the establishment of the NS-NAT is in the final phase and three points of sale terminals will be installed at the counters of the Central Registry of Companies. [34] However, at the end of the action plan period, the system itself is not yet in operation, and the goal of installing the NS-NAT at 10 points of sale has not yet been realized. [35] Therefore, the IRM considers the commitment’s completion limited.