What irregularities did the auditors find related to the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH) Ministry of Finance? Answers to these questions can be found in the report from the Office for Audit of the Institutions of FBiH.
Funds for financing the Solidarity Fund were not provided in the total amount of revenue collected from mandatory health insurance contributions since the 2023 FBiH Budget approved 51.650.000 BAM for the Fund, while contributions amounted to 203.802.658 BAM. This is not in accordance with Article 82 of the Health Insurance Law.
When submitting the budget request for financing the Solidarity Fund, the Federal Institute for Health Insurance and Reinsurance requested funds totaling 84.800.117 BAM.
It was pointed out that there is a problem with funding the existing List of Medicines of the Solidarity Fund and purchasing medicines for patients on the Fund’s waiting lists.
Moreover, the requested amount of 84.800.117 BAM for financing the Solidarity Fund is significantly less than the amount it is entitled to under Article 82 of the Health Insurance Law, which explicitly states that the same amount as the mandatory health insurance contributions must be provided from the FBiH Budget.
“Because of this, we cannot confirm that the Ministry of Finance ensured that the planning and approval of the required funds for financing the Solidarity Fund were in line with Article 27 of the Budget Law in FBiH, which defines the method of adopting the financial plan of the off-budget fund. The approved amount of the current transfer for financing the Solidarity Fund from the FBiH Budget for 2023 of 33.500.000 BAM represents only 10.2% of the planned contributions, which is not in accordance with Article 82 of the Health Insurance Law,” the report states.
The Audit Office concludes that this results in an unequal position in terms of exercising the rights of insured persons and the failure to provide patients with the legally prescribed level of treatment, which is not in accordance with Articles 11 and 82 of the Health Insurance Law. The Committee on Economic and Financial Policy of the House of Representatives of the FBiH Parliament discussed the Initiative for aligning the FBiH Budget Proposal for 2023 with the Health Insurance Law regarding the financing of the Solidarity Fund’s work on March 14th last year, adopting a Conclusion that the FBiH Government, when preparing the FBiH Budget Rebalance for 2023, should adopt the budget request of the FBiH Institute for Health Insurance and Reinsurance for 2023 and plan the budget request for the 2023-2025 period in the Framework Budget Document.
The amendments to the FBiH Budget increased the approved funds by 10.000.000 BAM and redistributed the amounts so that the operating budget allocated 51.650.000 BAM for the Solidarity Fund, which is still below the requested amount of 84.800.117 BAM.
Stimulating private companies
The audit of subsidies to private companies for bridging service years found that funds in the amount of 300.819 BAM under the Spending Program for subsidies to private companies and entrepreneurs for bridging service years for 2023 were granted to the company “Aluminij” d.d. Mostar.
However, according to the Audit Office, this company was not entitled to participate. Specifically, the criteria for awarding funds were not defined in terms of majority private ownership in the capital of the financial assistance recipient, as the funds are intended for private companies.
The program stipulates that the recipient of the aid must be a private company in which the capital of the FBiH or any level of government in the FBiH is less than 50% ownership.
The company “Aluminij” d.d. Mostar has a mixed capital structure consisting of: the FBiH Government (44%), the Croatian Government (12%), and individual shareholders (44%), meaning it has private ownership capital.
Therefore, the company is not majority-owned by FBiH, nor is it majority-owned privately, which is why it did not meet the basic criterion for participation and selection as a recipient of financial assistance. Additionally, the program granted funds for bridging service years based on unpaid pension contributions calculated on gross salaries exceeding the legally established minimums in FBiH.
“Given that the goal is to address the social status of workers through retirement and that funds for these purposes are secured in the FBiH Budget, we believe that from the perspective of efficient and rational public money management, it is neither appropriate nor justified to approve funds to cover pension contributions calculated on gross wages higher than the legally prescribed minimum gross wages in FBiH. We point out that the company ‘Aluminij’ d.d. Mostar was granted an average monthly amount per worker of 690 BAM to cover pension and disability insurance contributions, while other companies received 6 to 11 times less for the same purpose. In this way, private companies are being stimulated instead of being sanctioned for non-compliance with current legal regulations,” states the FBiH Institutions Audit Office, Klix.ba writes.
E.Dz.
