All payments in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) are blocked. Due to the fact that the House of Peoples of the Federal Parliament have not been filled, a budget for the current year has not been adopted at the time, nor the temporary funding measures were found, N1 news portal reports.
Court police, tax administrations, federal ministries, institutions, agencies, war veterans, they are all put on pending. Salaries are questionable, because of politics. Irresponsible and so far unseen – says the president of the Union of Civil Servants and State Employees of the Federation of BiH.
“We have the situation that the employees worked all of January and expect a normal salary and that all employees, 7,200 of them expect salary by February 15th, this is not very good, especially because my colleagues have obligations towards banks, loans, directors, costs,” said Samir Kurtovic, Trade Union of Civil Servants and State Employees.
Costs for consumed water, electricity, office supplies – someone has to pay for it, says Kurtovic. Payments to farmers have also been stopped. Without incentives, they say, spring works are also endangered. The war veterans are also wondering how to overcome this financial crisis. The consequences of the long-term blockade are multiple.
“What is likely to happen through political games is that residents of Federation of BiH who receive any kind of budgetary remuneration will remain without these benefits, and then there will be a reduction in spending, when this happens, traders will earn less, then producers earn less, and thus closes a circle all because the politics in BiH is much more important than life, “said Damir Miljevic, an economic analyst.
Politicians are shifting responsibility to one another. In the HDZ party, it was stated the budget should adopt newly elected delegates to the House of Peoples. The SDA argues that the old Council of the House has equal legitimacy, but that HDZ deliberately blocks the Federation. The SDP blames the Federal Government.