BIRN has reported before on the tendency for media outlets close to Serbia’s ruling party to benefit disproportionately from public tenders, grants and advertising, while at the same time systematically violating the Journalists’ Code of Ethics.
Separately, an analysis of ministry spending in 2022 and 2023 found that a significant portion of public funds for media, culture, youth and civil society went either to organisations masquerading as NGOs but in fact linked to Serbia’s ruling parties – GONGOs – or phantom ‘associations’ that exist only on paper, without offices, employees, activities or online presence.
According to data from the Serbian public business register, Starovic has previously headed three associations, worked as a sole proprietor, and is the owner of Gradske info. Each of these legal entities has received money from public coffers since 2020.
Her sole proprietor agency and later Gradske info received a total of almost 75,000 euros through six public tenders issued by the Provincial Secretariat for Regional Development, Interregional Cooperation, and Local Self-Government, and another issued by the national Pension and Disability Insurance Fund, PIO Fund.
In every case, Starovic was the sole bidder, and all services were paid for up front, in full.
In the case of the six tenders issued by the Secretariat last year, Gradske info, Hashtag Digital Media Group and Vesti sa severa each submitted bids for two, i.e. they did not compete for the same tender.
“This is not only a case of unlawful conduct by the contracting authority, but also of ‘market sharing’ among bidders,” said Nenadic.
“Namely, all six procurements were won by a total of three companies that did not compete with one another,” he told BIRN. “It is therefore not surprising that the offered prices were very close to the total estimated value of the contracts.”
Nenadic also said it was “highly problematic” that the tenders including publication of ‘news’.
The Secretariat can publish adverts and promotional content, he said, and media outlets “can, if relevant, report on news about their [the Secretariat’s] work as part of their regular activities”.
“If the subject of the services were promotional activities of the Provincial Secretariat (and not ‘news,’ as stated in the tender documentation), then the contracting authority should also set relevant conditions and criteria for selecting the media through which that campaign would be disseminated – for example, having a certain number of followers on social media, a certain reach, audience profile, and similar.”
“Not only did the Provincial Secretariat fail to do this, but it also forgot to set as a requirement that the bidder prove that it is a publisher of a media outlet or that it has any social media accounts.”