According to data from the Agency for Statistics of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), the level of prices in March, compared to last year’s March, was higher by 10.3 percent. Food prices rose the most, by 19 percent, while footwear and clothing fell in price by 6.1 percent. Despite this pressure on household budgets, citizens show no will to seriously protest against price gouging.
With an inflation rate of more than 14% and an increase in the prices of almost all products and services for personal consumption, the household budgets of the citizens of BiH are under enormous pressure. The most devastating consequences for citizens’ standards are brought about by a 19% increase in food prices and an almost 12% increase in utility costs. In the annual rate of price increase, the prices of almost all products and services are increasing by a double-digit percentage. How then citizens with BiH salaries and pensions all bear this inflationary blow?
According to statistical data, the average salary in BiH at the beginning of last year was 1043 BAM. Now that salary is 1211 BAM. Due to an inflation rate of over 14%, in other words, this salary increase was eaten up by inflation.
“This is becoming more and more a country of old people, young people are leaving, so they simply don’t see the perspective here anymore, they can’t get a job, they can’t show what they know, their values,” emphasizes the president of the Tuzla Solidarity Trade Union, Sakib Kopic.
If the situation is so bad due to inflation, and we witness this every day in media articles and the reactions of numerous union leaders, the logical question arises why workers and citizens did not use May 1st more decisively to clearly show their disagreement with the price policy in BiH.
The part of BiH citizens with average and below-average salaries, who did not look for a way out by going to Western European countries, is left, as Kopic says, to suffer the consequences of an idealess trade union leadership that does not want to take responsibility for serious trade union action.
