Slovenia is a small country in Central Europe, but contains within its borders Alpine mountains, thick forests, historic cities, and a short Adriatic coastline. Slovenia was the first former Yugoslav republic to join the European Union, in May 2004 - shortly after joining Nato. Unlike Croatia or Bosnia-Herzegovina, Slovenia's independence from Yugoslavia was swiftly won with relatively few deaths. The country also found the transition from a state economy to the free market easier than most. Long regarded as one of the best-performing new EU members, Slovenia was dragged into a deep recession by the European financial crisis in 2012. This prompted mass protests at corruption and economic mismanagement by successive governments. Prime minister of a centre-left government between 2008-12, Borut Pahor was was first elected president in December 2012. He narrowly won re-election in November 2017, beating Marjan Sarec of the new LMS party.
Source: BBC Country Profile
American Embassy Ljubljana:
The inspection took place May 20 - 31, 2002. The team consisted of Marshall P. Adair (team leader). Marshall was an experienced senior POL/ECON FSO who was a Deputy Assistant Secretary (DAS) in OIG and as a DAS in EUR for Richard Holbrooke. He served as the president of AFSA. Frances R. Culpepper (Deputy); Kris McMinn (Management) Robert W. Mustain (CONS); and Jim Martino (DS). Kris was one of the oldest serving OIG inspectors dating back to when she was the Executive Assistant to the IG Jacquelyn Bridges in the late 90’s. Kris left the OIG last year and transferred to the A bureau working part-time so she could devote more time to her family. Jim Martino came from the GAO and got involved with State by leading a study of the security following the 1983 embassy bombing in Beirut. He joined the OIG in 1989.
The Ambassador was Johnny Young a Career Minister who
had a long and distinguished 37 year career at State. He started as a Budget & Fiscal Officer
in Antananarivo, Madagascar in 1967. He
was Administrative Counselor in Bridgetown, Barbados in 1979 and Amman, Jordan
in 1983. He served as Ambassador to
Sierra Leone, Togo, and Bahrain.
Slovenia was his final assignment.
In retirement Ambassador Young served as the Executive Director of
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
His autobiography “Projects to the Palace: A Diplomat’s Unlikely Journey from the Bottom
to the Top” was published in 2013. He
and his wife Angelena were very outgoing.
I remember being at a local concert when they showed up with not a lot
of fanfare. The Management Officer was
John Lipinski, who seemed very suspicious of OIG at first but later realized
that we were no threat but there to help him address problems. He was very helpful in arranging our separate
arrivals, hotel accommodations at the Grand Union and onward two and a half
hour travel by train to Zagreb.
Findings:
The quality of regional coverage received by Embassy
Ljubljana varies. Frankfurt’s Regional Support Center (RSC) Reginal Financial
Management Officer, Charlie Eaton was adequate.
Carolyn Creevy, Regional Human Resources Officer (HRO) was helpful but
needed to schedule more frequent visits; to facilitate communications with HR/Office
of Overseas Employment (OE) for changes to the Local Compensation Plan and
incorporate the newly developed Computer Aided Job Evaluation (CAJE) system in
HR. Assessments of the regional medical office
coverage vary, although very good local health facilities help the embassy cope
with medical issues.
The mission occupied four sites throughout the city of
Ljubljana. The GSO and community liaison office (CLO) are housed in the mission
annex two blocks away from the chancery. The United States Customs regional
export and border security facility is next door to the annex. The office of
defense cooperation and the military liaison team are located at the Ministry
of Defense. The embassy would like to consolidate all mission operations in one
compound by purchasing the two properties adjacent to the chancery - the
Russian embassy to the west and the nursery school to the south. OIG agreed
that consolidation of all operations would, in principle, help to meet
Department standards for both security and efficient operations. The cost of
purchasing either of these two properties is too high to be justified at this
time solely to consolidate operations.
In General Services Office (GSO) procurement contract
folders including Blanker Purchase Agreements were not administered or
organized as required by Department of State Acquisition Regulation. Official vehicle inventory records to not distinguish
which are International Cooperative Administrative Support Services Council (ICASS)
and those that are Program develop a plan to reduce the overall number of
vehicles. The Daily Vehicle Usage Report completed by Drivers did not sufficiently
document the purpose of a trip nor obtain signatures of passengers, as
required.
In the area of HR, OIG suggested that the
administrative officer and HR specialist, in coordination with the FSN
committee, develop a proposal to revise the mission local compensation plan to
address the changes in the local labor laws in coordination with HR/OE. Mission
management should be more proactive in encouraging supervisors to recognize
employee’s performance maintain open channels of communication and encouraged more dialogue between the FSNs and mission management.
Formal recommendations in financial management
included recommendations to:
- Install the Travel Manager program,
arrange for training staff and issue an administrative instruction on
preparation and submission of vouchers.
- Require the Accountable Consular Officer to
forward the monthly summary of the daily accounting of consular fee receipts to
the administrative officer for verification with cashier collections.
- Improve coordination between the Public Affairs
section and FMO on grants management for funding, monitoring and close out.
- Issue a mission-wide administrative
directive to ensure that overtime is requested and approved in advance.
Highlights:
- Quaint downtown Ljubljana
- Ljubljana Castle
- Train to Trieste and visit to Miramare Castle
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| River Ljubljanica first spanned by bridge in the Roman period. |
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| Downtown Ljubljana |
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| Center City Trieste |
Some of my colleagues went to visit San Marino, a four and half hour train ride from Ljubljana. I decided to take the train to Trieste, which was two and a half-hour train ride and besides visiting the Miramar Castle I had a wonderful seafood meal on the coast.
Trieste is a seaport city in northeastern Italy. It is a narrow strip of Italian territory lying between the Adriatic Sea and Slovenia and 19 miles from Croatia to the south. Trieste is at the head of the Gulf of Trieste and has a very long coastline. In 2018, it had a population of about 205,000 and it is the capital of the autonomous region Friuli Venezia Giulia. Trieste was one of the oldest parts of the Habsburg Monarchy from 1382 until 1918. In the 19th century the monarchy was one of the Great Powers of Europe and Trieste was its most important seaport. As a prosperous seaport in the Mediterranean, Trieste became the fourth largest city of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (after Vienna, Budapest and Prague.
Miramar castle and park built by Archduke Maximillian for his bride the Princessa visit.
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