While politicians increase their salaries, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) is increasingly becoming a country of rich and poor, without a middle class. Queues in front of soupkitchens are getting longer, among the users there are workers with minimum wages, pensioners, artists… Salaries of BiH politicians are getting bigger, the rich are getting richer, and the poor are getting poorer.
“Due to the rise in the price of flour, there is a shortage of food in the soup kitchen”, “The number of users of soup kitchens has tripled”, are news that have been filling the headlines more and more frequently in recent years. On the other hand, there are those about lump-sum increases for councilors, representatives, higher salaries for officials… While politicians are fighting for incomes of up to 8,000 BAM, citizens are looking for salvation in boilers. There is almost no “middle”. Darinka Sinik, once with the title of the most beautiful woman of Banja Luka, knows this best, but today she buys medicine on credit and comes to Kuhinja (Kitchen) for food.
“I had loans of 123 BAM, and pensions of 153. What am I going to do, I have nothing to eat, I have nothing,“ said Darinka Sinik, citizen of Banja Luka.
In the Banja Luka kitchen, they distribute up to 800 meals a day, much more on weekends. Help from the local level, they say, cannot cover the needs.
“Neither price growth nor user growth follows it. To share food or feed people with this what we get today is very, very difficult,“ noted Miroslav Subasic, president of the Association “Mosaic of Friendship” Banja Luka.
And an even greater absurdity is evidenced by the Children’s Soup Kitchen in Lukavac. Without any money from the budget from any level of government, with appeals that the authorities do not hear, food is provided exclusively by donations, and the number of beneficiaries has increased from 80 to almost four hundred. More than a hundred citizens are waiting. Among the beneficiaries is Kada Mehmedovic, who has a sick daughter. With minimal income, she says, she is forced to choose whether to buy medicine or food. She can’t afford both.”
“Utilities bills have to be paid, many medicines, unfortunately I have a daughter who has paralysis, and she has something minimal, we can’t do it at all,“ said Kada Mehmedovic.
“I have a loan and then I can’t live on my pension, I come to Kuhinja,“ said Hasnija Kudumovic.
“Although we have been trying to make some contacts lately, we don’t know the reasons, but there is no progress. We continue to be financed exclusively by humane individuals, companies, companies that are socially responsible,“ stated Jasmin Garagic, volunteer at the Children’s Soup Kitchen in Lukavac.
And while the gap between the rich and the poor is growing, the question arises, as our interlocutor said, will we all end up eating at boilers, while politicians think about how to spend the high salaries that the citizens provide them?
E.Dz.
