The Chairman of the Management Board of the Indirect Taxation Administration (ITA Board) and the Minister of Finance and Treasury of Bosnia and Herzegovina Srđan Amidžić said that at today’s meeting of the ITA Board there were 16 points, and he singled out the one related to the distribution of toll revenue for the construction of highways and road reconstruction.
“One of the items on the agenda should have been the distribution of tolls and that this money should be put to the function and service of people living in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the RS. I regret to say that this point was not supported and what I can tell you, which is my personal impression, after four months of working here, I am convinced that BiH is an economically unsustainable country,” said Amidžić.
He noted that he does not raise the question of the political, cultural, religious sustainability of Bosnia and Herzegovina, but that he only talks about what is his department, which is the economy.
“Only in BiH do you have a situation where I should feel happy that I signed a contract with the EBRD for the construction of 15 km of highway and two interchanges Mostar south, Mostar north where we borrowed 110 million euros, or only in BiH should I be happy that we started negotiations with the World Bank and the EBRD on the financing of the main road Foča – Šćepan Polje and that I experience it as a success, and at the same time you have a situation where the accounts of the Administration for Indirect Taxation are almost 250 million BAM,” said Amidžić.
He recalled that he had once stated that the citizens had been deceived.
“All of us, me together with you, paid excise duty on oil and oil derivatives and that money is in the account. Is that money expected to be put to work? However, we do not put that money to work. At the same time, you have an inflation rate that eats up that money every year, and we can use it to build fewer and fewer kilometers of highways and main roads,” said Amidžić.
Someone long ago said, quoted Amidžić, that the place where Bosnia begins is the place where logic ends.
“I wish this was just a problem with toll funds. We have 250 million when it comes to the Indirect Taxation Administration, 250 million when it comes to Elektroprenos, 75 million in excess income over the expenses paid by the RAK, 125 million in multi-year capital projects and all of that is on the accounts,” Amidžić added.
He added that he was sorry that they could not agree on things that have an impact on a smaller number of people, but are very important for some 30 or so employees of the Indirect Taxation Administration.
“Due to the disagreement of one member of the Management Board of the Indirect Taxation Administration, who did not want to accept technical changes to the rulebook on systematization, I unfortunately have to tell you that 30 workers within the Indirect Taxation Administration will lose their jobs. Those are some ugly messages and meetings like this are not meetings that inspire optimism in me. This, I repeat, is again my personal impression,” said Amidžić.
He stated that two points received support, adding that there are a significant number of individuals and legal entities suing the Indirect Taxation Authority regarding deposit accounts and that these people were right.
“This has been dragging on since 2018, they are demanding some money from the Indirect Tax Administration, the Administration was not able to pay it to those citizens and legal entities. Today, we adopted a decision according to which we will set aside one million and eight hundred thousand BAM in order to fulfill all obligations towards these individuals and legal entities,” stated Amidžić.
He also noted that they have started to solve certain problems related to mines and thermal power plants.
“In my opinion, they were unfairly forced to pay the excise tax on the toll and they have been paying it this whole year, they even got a solution that they have to pay 30 million BAM in some concessions. I think that solution is not correct and we adopted the decision to put that solution out of force in the first phase, and in the following phases we have to find a way to help mines and thermal power plants, both in the Federation of BiH, where there are 15 of them, and in the Republika Srpska, where there are 14,” concluded Amidžić, Fena writes.
