We are at the beginning of a calendar year. One of the pressing problems in our country that we are facing is the departure of young people from Bosnia and Herzegovina. Those who stayed and plan to live here depend on loans, mostly. They also see a perspective for additional earnings in betting shops, and there are many who have a hot meal thanks to public kitchens. And the government? It arranges tenders with suitable ones, makes legal solutions and concessions for dismembering the remaining wealth of this country. Stomachs are getting emptier from the promises addressed to the citizens.
Seventy-year-old Sead from Travnik is one of almost 20,000 citizens of this country who survive thanks to meals in public kitchens.
“I take it home, my wife is disabled and that’s all we have,” says Sead.
Along with single people and families with children, the number of pensioners who share his fate is growing every day.
“In addition to the existing 350 people, we received over thirty more who signed up here in the kitchen,” says Kadira Musić, a cook in Merhamet’s public kitchen.
Unfortunately, the number of those whose pension or salary is insufficient to survive is constantly growing, but out of shame they are not yet at the door of public kitchens. This is also confirmed by UN research, according to which 700,000 inhabitants of this country are on the verge of poverty. At the same time, the government boasts of budget growth at all levels. It is not the result of an increase in production, but the price of foodstuffs and levies on the economy.
“With these contributions and burdens, parafiscal levies, workers cannot get higher wages, and these wages cannot survive and people are looking for a solution. No matter how much anyone likes it or not – the state is being emptied”, says Šaban Rizvić, a member of the Executive Board of the Central Bosnian Canton Employers’ Association.
Those who remain seek salvation in raising loans. In the first ten months of this year alone, according to data from the Central Bank of Bosnia and Herzegovina, commercial banks offered almost 12 billion marks in loans to the population. However, there are many who cannot go to banks, so they borrow money from microcredit organizations or see the hope of escaping poverty in betting shops.
“In 2023, turnover based on different types of betting was realized in the amount of 1,626,491,376 BAM. This is the turnover that was achieved on the basis of sports and RNG betting”, says Adis Durak, head of the Department for Inspection Supervision at KPU Novi Travnik.
On that payment, the state charged an average of 2.2 percent, or slightly more than 44 million, on the basis of fees and taxes on paid winnings of over one hundred marks, because no tax is paid on those below that amount. According to experts, the solution lies in the urgent amendment of legal regulations that have been in force since 2015.
“It is a highly privileged way of taxation, which is significantly different compared to taxes that are paid on other grounds. This is evidenced by the fact that not a single payment is subject to VAT – as are basic foodstuffs,” Durak points out.
Those who make decisions know this and brag about this year’s electricity export, which, they say, will exceed one billion marks at the national level this year. And only in the Federation, in less than twelve months, one and a half year’s state export of electricity is poured into betting shops. Of which only slightly more than two percent reaches the budget.
