After a session lasting several hours, the Council of Ministers adopted the information from the Ministry of Finance and Treasury of Bosnia and Herzegovina, without a concrete solution for the payment of the debt following the arbitration dispute Viaduct v. Bosnia and Herzegovina. In order to enable the execution of obligations that have grown to nearly 11 million BAM to date, the Chairwoman of the Council of Ministers Borjana Krišto is tasked with scheduling a session of the Fiscal Council, which is expected to correct the fiscal framework.
Chairwoman Krišto stated after the session that following the conclusion from the previous session and the deadline of 15 that it had, the Ministry of Finance and Treasury submitted extensive information today instead of a concrete proposal.
“It was a comprehensive information that did not contain any concrete proposal for a conclusion. Today, I asked my colleague Minister what that information actually was. My obligation was, and I also informed the ministers, that as soon as we receive a proposal for a solution, we will schedule an extraordinary session in order to express our opinion, because every day in Bosnia and Herzegovina currently costs at least 9,000 euros. I asked the minister what we received in these 15 days and whether it was necessary to wait for this information in which there is no proposal for conclusions. What we can conclude is that it cost us 135,000 euros in this period,” said Krišto.
She added that the minister tried to explain that the proposals were in the information, after which a broad discussion was opened.
“Our obligation and what I will advocate for is to immediately implement this arbitration ruling in order to reduce the harmful consequences for BiH and its institutions, and of course for others who are obliged to collect under the recourse claim. To do it at once and it must be done in a legal manner. The only way, because we have not been dealing with this problem since yesterday, is to intervene in the budget. I offered the minister a proposed solution, to make corrections in the budget for the implementation of the ruling of 110 million. The minister insisted and it took us quite a long time, so now we have the obligation to schedule a Fiscal Council. I am saying here and before you, there is no such obligation, because we are not changing the fiscal framework, but only making internal allocations,” explains Krišto.
If the Fiscal Council does not accept the proposal for changes to the fiscal framework, she announces that she will still submit the budget for the institutions, with corrections that would enable payments, to the Presidency of BiH, with the request that both the Presidency and the Parliamentary Assembly of BiH adopt it as soon as possible.
“Anything else represents procrastination, a waste of time and additional costs and obligations for BiH,” emphasized Krišto.
