State Audit Institution (DRI) announced that it initiated offence procedures against 19 officials, including six incumbent and five former ministers in the government, for violations of the Budget System Law.

The offence procedures were initiated against Minister of Trade and Services Slobodan Milosavljevic, Minister for Kosovo and Metohija Goran Bogdanovic, Minister of Education Zarko Obradovic, Health Minister Tomica Milosavljevic, Minister of Culture Nebojsa Bradic, and Minister of Environment and Spatial Planning Oliver Dulic. Slobodan Milosavljevic was charged on the basis of the reasonable suspicion that he took upon himself obligations and allowed expenditures not envisaged by the Serbian budget law.

The ministers Bogdanovic, Obradovic, and Tomica Milosavljevic are charged with allowing expenditures for catering services on the basis of the documentation according to which it could not be established that the spendings were for the purposes of business.

The health minister is accused of allowing expenditures for the implementation of a public health program without accounting documentation.

The culture minister will be held responsible on the basis of the reasonable suspicion that he committed payments for goods and services without accounting documentation, i.e. without a valid accounting document.

Five former ministers against whom charges are pressed are Sasa Dragin, for offences committed while serving as minister of environment protection, former Culture Minister Brajovic, former Minister of Trade Bubalo, former Education Minister Loncar, and former Minister for Kosovo and Metohija Samardzic, the announcement says.