18.06.2013.
Workshop on Integrity in Defence Budgeting and Financing
The three-day workshop on "Integrity in defence budgeting and financing" has been opened today in the House of Guard in Topcider. The workshop, organized by the Sector for Political Affairs and Security Policy of NATO International Secretariat, Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Ministry of Defence of the Republic of Serbia, was opened by Assistant Minister for Defence Policy Miroslav Jovanovic.The workshop is dedicated to the professional development of the defence sector which is essentially the continuation of the previous two workshops held in Sarajevo and Sofia. The first workshop was devoted to the risks of corruption in defence, and the other to integrity in defence procurement.
Assistant Minister of Defence Policy said that the meaning of these related activities lies in the idea that professionals, experts from a number of countries that are dealing with a particular problem in practice, jointly analyze specific problems, identify key ethical challenges of the defence system and recommend measures to improve the efficiency of the system.
- As the Head of the Defence Policy Sector, I am here to express the strong support that the management of our ministry, headed by the First Deputy Prime Minister of the Serbian Government and Defence Minister Aleksandar Vucic, offers to the NATO Building Integrity Initiative in the field of defence, as well as all similar projects of partner organizations and states. They are compatible with our commitment to "zero tolerance" towards the phenomena of corruption, organized crime and violations of legal and ethical standards in the defence system, Jovanovic pointed out.The audience was also addressed by Dr Alberto Bin, Director of Integration, Partnerships and Cooperation Directorate PASP/NATO, Dr Olivier Desarzen from Building Integrity Tailored Programme for Southeastern Europe and Bojana Balon, representative of UNDP/SEESAC in Belgrade.
The participants are representatives of the Ministries of Defence and Foreign Affairs of 12 states, representatives of the Ministry of Defence and the Serbian Armed Forces and representatives of a number of Serbian state bodies in charge of combating corruption and foreign defence attaches.Topics to be discussed by the participants include defence economy, the process of budgeting and financing of defence, the regional context, reduction of the risk through management and audit and path to the national integrity system.
