How is it possible that out of around 700 million euros in three sectors – energy, digitization and human capital, not a single one is earmarked for cantons with a Bosniak majority, one of the “accused” prime ministers of the SDA Nezir Pivic, asked the federal prime minister Nermin Niksic, as well as representatives of the “Coalition of Three“.
Two days ago, the leader of the SDP BiH and Prime Minister of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH) Nermin Niksic blamed the SDA for not adopting the Reform Plan, which prevented BiH from accessing the money allocated by the European Union (EU) for the countries of the Western Balkans.
Pivic called these statements of Niksic “nebulous” and told him that there was “much more than it” when it comes to the SDA document.
“First, in the draft Reform Plan there are two tables of submitted projects. First Table number 145. “Draft Indicative list of priority investment projects for support through the Reform Agenda” and second number 146. “Draft list of investment projects that require additional consultation for inclusion in Table 1”.
I remind Niksic that at no time did we problematize the first table because these are “mature” relevant and confirmed projects. There are projects from the transport sector worth 2.3 billion euros, the energy sector worth 1.1 billion euros and the digitization sector worth 3.135 billion euros. So a total of 6.535 billion euros. The growth plan is worth 1 billion euros, so it is clear that all these projects will not be financed from this instrument”, said the Prime Minister of Zenica Doboj Canton (ZDC), adding:
“We pointed to the second table number 146, in which we did not problematize the transport sector at any time because there are projects of the Pocitelj-Stolac corridor, the Komar tunnel, Lasva-Nevic Polje, Sarajevo airport, but also Mostar airport and Grude, Istocno Sarajevo, TEN-T network for Republika Srpska (RS), etc. In the phase of harmonizing the Reform Plan, we pointed to the remaining three sectors in that table 146: Energy, Digitization and Human Capital. How is it possible that out of about 700 million euros in these three sectors, not one is earmarked for cantons with a Bosniak majority?”.
The contested projects, according to the SDA, are in two sectors: digitization and infrastructure for human capital, worth 20.6 million BAM. In his post on Facebook, he stated that these are all projects for RS and Elektroprivreda HZHB.
“At first glance, without a detailed analysis, it can be seen that 700 million euros are planned for the RS and cantons with a Croatian majority in the Energy, Digitization and Human Capital sectors. Let Nermin Niksic answer how it is possible for the RSentity to be called a state in these projects: Design and implementation of the State eGovernment portal of the RS and the State open data portal of the RS, and at the same time the RS requests and he agrees to delete the term state along with BiH”, Pivic added.
He called Niksic‘s claims that “the SDA complains because the cantons were not consulted in evaluating and delegating projects, but only the state and state institutions” as untrue.
“We object because only our cantons were not consulted for anything, not even for these projects, while the others obviously were. If, as Niksic claims, “state institutions and ministries proposed and implemented the preparation and delegation of projects, as soon as practically the state is the only “stakeholder”, i.e. party and factor in defining priorities”, why did those state ministries headed by his coalition partners not consult and proposed projects from cantons with a Bosniak majority?
Nothing was “done respecting the needs of different communities and places“, as Niksic claims, but it was planned that all 700 million euros from these three sectors go to cantons with a Croatian majority and the RS”, pointed out the Prime Minister of ZDC.
E.Dz.
