Serbia's Anti-Corruption agency apologises for wrong reports on campaign costs

"We were warned on Thursday of illogicalness in the presentation of numerical data, and we launched the control of all reports on election campaign expenses, submitted by political entities about the last republican, provincial and local elections," the Agency said in a statement.

It promised that all reports would be corrected as soon as possible.

The Transparency Serbia warned the Agency about some illogicalness in published reports.

The reports cite significantly lower campaign expenses than the amounts showed in the "Revenue" section.

Also, in the specific cost categories, such as those for TV advertising (which represents the largest expenses), significant amounts were omitted, the Transparency warned.

The report about the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) expenses, the Agency's report showed it spent a total of around 5.8 million Euro in revenues from public sources and own funds. But, another part of the same report showed the total cost was some 1.5 million Euro.

The similar error occurred in the report about the campaign costs of the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS), SNS current coalition partner, and the newly formed Patriotic SPAS (Salvation) Movement, the only two political organisations that entered Serbia's parliament after June 21 elections, crossing the lessen threshold of three percent.

Besides them, the national minorities' parties also won sets in the Assembly based on a natural threshold.

The main opposition parties boycotted the ballot.