Without announcing a competition, and often without professional qualifications and work experience. In this way, 135 people were employed in the Forest Management Company”Hercegbosanske sume” in Canton 10, in the southwest of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH).
This is stated in the indictment against Branko Ivkovic, which was confirmed by the court in Livno, a small town in this canton. The prosecution accuses him of abusing the position of director of this public company during 2018 and 2019.
“I wouldn’t say anything now, because we filed an objection to the confirmation of the indictment and we haven’t received an answer yet. Until I know what’s going on with it, there’s no point in discussing this now,” Ivkovic explained.
A prison sentence of between six months and five years is provided for abuse of position.
Thanks to political and family ties, jobs in the public sector are often awarded without a competition or by rigging it. Therefore, illegal employment is one of the most common forms of systemic corruption in BiH, warn the services for auditing the operations of public institutions in their reports and recommendations to institutions.
Hiring bias
Ljiljana Markovic applied more than 20 times for a job at the Center for Preschool Education in Banja Luka, a public institution of special social interest, but she was unsuccessful in getting a job. She has a master’s degree in preschool education, and has been working in private kindergartens since 2015.
After the last case, she submitted an objection to the competition results.
In her complaint, she stated that she believes that the interview serves only to rig the competition and that politics is behind everything.
Sale of jobs and retention of purchased work
In addition to rigging the competition, cases of “selling jobs” in the public sector have also been recorded.
Rejhan Rakovic admitted that, as the president of the Commission for the Selection of Candidates for the Border Police of BiH, he organized a group that “sold” the positions of policemen and junior inspectors in this police agency.
In the latest Report of the European Commission on the progress of BiH on its path to obtaining candidate status, it is stated that BiH should “ensure a professional and depoliticized civil service” as a precondition for the start of negotiations on membership in the European Union (EU), Radio Slobodna Evropa reports.
E.Dz.
