The Minister of Finance and Treasury in the Council of Ministers, Vjekoslav Bevanda, rejected all speculations regarding the crisis in the financing of elections in BiH and clarified the procedures that he personally and the line ministry have carried out so far in this process in accordance with the law.
“Procedures are known and I respect them,” Bevanda said at an emergency session of the House of Peoples of the BiH Parliamentary Assembly, at which the SDA Delegate Club proposed a conclusion ordering the finance ministry to draft a decision on allocating funds to the Central Election Commission (CEC) to organize elections in October in the amount of 12.5 million BAM, and to make this decision of the Council of Ministers within 48 hours.
He reminded that the session of the Council of Ministers was not held on March 24, at which the budget was supposed to be discussed, because the agenda was not adopted.
“It was a telephone session, but regardless of that, the Rules of Procedure regulate that you first decide on the agenda. There were not enough votes for the discussion that was the subject of that agenda,” Bevanda explained.
The Minister of Finance stated exhaustively all the deadlines that the institutions “broke”, which directly affected the non-adoption of the budget for last year and this year. Bevanda noted that BiH institutions have been on temporary funding for the sixth quarter. He pointed out that the accumulated funds have their purpose determined by the budget, and that these funds cannot be approved without a decision of the Council of Ministers.
“We have said that they cannot be made available without a decision of the Council of Ministers, not that they cannot be made available in any way,” Bevanda said.
He emphasized that the Ministry of Finance tried everything to reach the budget, because it is the only document that regulates everything.
Bevanda said that the Law on the Fiscal Council prescribes that the budget of BiH must be adopted first, and then the entities, and that the ministry headed by him has repeatedly sent urgencies for the adoption of the framework budget for this year.
