Pensioners from the Tuzla Canton (TC) with the lowest pension will receive 100 BAM of one-time assistance. As they receive help during the election year, the question arises as to how much it will mean to this population that has been facing poverty for a long time? What about those who do not have even the lowest income?
The pensioners will mostly use the additional 100 BAM of one-time help with the July pension to buy medicines, which they have been buying on credit for a long time. A return to the old state will follow from September.
”And that this is a drop in the bucket,” says the president of the Association of Pensioners of TC, noting that every 1 BAM is important to this most endangered population, and bigger steps are needed for a better position.
”To intervene and save this catastrophically difficult situation as soon as possible through social programs and by increasing the lowest pensions,” Haso Halilovic states.
The news about the one-time help to pensioners also met with numerous reactions from the public about the payment in the election year. Authorities deny that this is an election campaign.
”This is a precedent that will force all government institutions to take similar action with their pensioners or the population for which they are responsible,” says the director of the Federal Pension and Disability Insurance Institute of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH) Zijad Krnjic.
Thousands of those who cannot even exercise the right to a minimum pension, let alone this one-time help, testify to how much the authorities actually care about the citizens. One of them is a former employee of Resod-Guming Tuzla, who has spent most of her life at work and due to paperwork has been waiting years for retirement, with impaired health and no income.
”This state does not think of its former workers, employees who even worked in the war. We don’t have anything. This is a shame,” Sabaha Sadikovic expressed.
One-time assistance is provided for 35.466 pensioners with the lowest pension, for which a little more than 3.500.000 BAM goes from the Cantonal budget. They have spent years at work, and today they are buying bread and medicines on credit, hoping for a one-time help, and many do not even receive a pension, BHRT writes.
