US embassy cable - 05LJUBLJANA523

UNCLAS  LJUBLJANA 000523 
 
SIPDIS 
 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
DEPT FOR EUR/NCE, G/TIP, INL 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREL, PGOV, PHUM, CMGT, SI 
SUBJECT: COM MEETS WITH INTERIOR MINSTER ON TIP, ANTI 
CORRUPTION AND BIOMETRIC PASSPORTS 
 
 
1. (U)  Summary. In a meeting with Minister of Interior 
Dragutin Mate, COM discussed USG concern about the continuing 
delay by the GOS to fund the NGO Kljuc which Mate insisted he 
wanted to do, but was being slowed down because of a new law 
which severely prescribes awarding government contracts to 
family members of high government officials.  Finding ways to 
train investigators on financial crimes and the production of 
biometric passports - possibly as early as this autumn, were 
also on the agenda. End Summary. 
 
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Funding Anti-TIP NGO 
-------------------- 
 
2. (U)  Mate opened the meeting on July 21 telling COM that 
he wanted to be sure the Ambassador had "the whole picture" 
on a number of issues, including the funding problem with the 
anti-trafficking NGO Kljuc.  Post has been pressuring the GOS 
since March to make good on its commitment to fund the work 
of Kljuc, which does educational outreach and victim 
protection as part of the GOS plan to fight trafficking in 
persons. Until June, the obstacle was the budget 
"rebalancing" the GOS was undertaking.  Shortly after that 
was settled and funds in the budget had been earmarked for 
Kljuc, it was determined that the Government could not 
proceed with the transfer of funds because of a conflict of 
interest of one of Kljuc's board members.  Drago Kos, a board 
member of Kljuc and husband of Kljuc's director, Katjusa 
Kodele Kos, is the head of the government's Corruption 
Prevention Commission (CPC).  According to Sandi Curin, the 
national coordinator for TIP, this is the conflict of 
interest.  The law on the Prevention of Corruption, drafted 
with the help of Drago Kos' Commission and adopted in October 
2004, was designed to prevent conflicts of interest between 
government officials and people or entities which might 
potentially benefit from government contracts. 
 
3. (U)  According to Mate, the GOS knows there is no other 
competent NGO to do the work of Kljuc. Nonetheless,there will 
have to be a tendering process. (Note: According to Curin, 
Drago Kos' resignation from the supervisory board of Kljuc 
could solve this problem)  Every expectation is that Kljuc 
will be chosen and the funds will finally be transferred. 
The best case scenario is for this to happen by late 
September - fully nine months after the beginning of the 
budget year.  Kljuc is currently receiving some funding from 
UNHCR and from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that is not 
subject to conflict of interest rules.  It is a question, 
however, how long Kljuc can remain on life support before 
Kodele Kos decides to throw in the towel.  Mate recognized 
that this would be a serious blow to Slovenia's anti-TIP 
program.  (Note: It is not clear why this conflict of 
interest was not noted and dealt with earlier.) 
 
4. (SBU)  Mate also told COM that the job of interagency TIP 
coordinator currently performed by Sandi Curin (who just 
returned from an IV program on TIP) at the MOI would be 
transferred to the Ministry of Labor.  The bulk of the 
Government's work in assisting victims of trafficking is 
managed by the Ministry of Labor, and Mate said it made more 
sense to place the focal point for TIP in that Ministry.  No 
one has yet been identified to take over, however Curin would 
remain involved in TIP from the law enforcement perspective. 
 
--------------------- 
Combating Corruption 
--------------------- 
 
5. (U)  Picking up on the corruption theme, Mate said that he 
was interested in his police officers gaining more expertise 
in investigating financial crime.  He lamented that he had no 
financial experts, e.g. accountants, on his force and that 
traditional investigative methods were insufficient for 
uncovering the ins and outs of this more sophisticated class 
of crime.  COM responded that there were certainly programs 
available through the USG that might be useful to this end, 
but given Slovenia's relatively well off economic status and 
membership in the EU, we would need to discuss further how 
some of these programs might be funded. 
 
6. (SBU)  Mate said he was busy reorganizing the work of the 
Ministry, noting it bothered him when people outside the 
Ministry of Interior tried to "influence how things are 
done."  He said that part of "reorganizing" would be putting 
the "right people in place and establish mechanisms that will 
work." 
 
------------------- 
Biometric Passports 
------------------- 
 
 
7. (U)   Mate informed COM that the tendering process for the 
biometric passports was done and they were receiving bids. 
He thought the contract would be awarded sometime in 
September.  At that point, the GOS will have to decide 
whether to immediately begin issuing the new passports or to 
wait until some time in the new year.  The reason to delay 
producing new passports is the current contract for passports 
still has two years to run. If the current producer is not 
chosen for the biometric passports, the GOS could find itself 
having to honor that contract financially while also paying 
out for the new contract. 
 
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Comment 
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8. (SBU)  Mate has said that two of his top priorities are 
combating trafficking in persons and corruption - two topics 
on which Post engages the GOS extensively.  While we remain 
concerned about GOS intentions about the CPC, we will 
continue to look for opportunities to assist Mate in training 
of his new law-enforcement team, especially in fighting 
financial crime. 
 
9. (SBU)  Interestingly, Mate seemed to be as frustrated by 
the conflict of interest law as State Prosecutor General 
Barbara Brezigar, who, in a recent meeting with COM, was very 
critical of the law.  She said it was not well thought-out 
and much too extensive for such a small country.  It reaches 
deep into the ranks of government employees and effectively 
shuts their spouses and other family members out of any 
possibility to bid on government funded projects or have any 
professional dealings with the Government, even if it is in 
no way connected to the government employee's work. The real 
irony of it all is that it's Drago Kos' own Commission which 
produces the list of people/organizations who are precluded 
from financial arrangements with the government. 
ROBERTSON 
 
 
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 2005LJUBLJ00523 - Classification: UNCLASSIFIED 


 
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