Monitoring results that are performed by the Center for Civic Initiatives shows that the authority in BiH at the state level is in a strange situation.
When asked how much representatives in the Parliament and undelivered laws cost BiH, Ivica Cavar of the CCI said that the salary of members of the Parliamentary Assembly is between 4,800 and 6,500 BAM, depending on fees that are taken (e.g. transport, apartment, etc.). Parliamentaries monthly receive a lump sum of 713 BAM, and they earn between 230,000 and 300,000 BAM in four years. Cavar said that European standard stipulates that representatives in the Parliament should earn up to 3.5 average salaries, which is not the case in BiH, and he noted that they have shown resistance to the abolition of the so-called “White bread”. Laws cost 150,000 BAM per month, said Cavar.
The seriousness of the problems with the laws can be seen in the analysis of the realization of the planned work program. Three months to the end of the year was not realized as much as 82 % of the laws from the Work Program for 2016, or 46 of 56 planned laws.
On the other hand, the realization of strategies in the first nine months of the year was above the average of the previous mandate. Practically, for a year and a half, the current Council of Ministers determined the almost equal number of strategies as previous one in full four-year term – eight in 2015, and five in the first nine months of 2016.
The Parliamentary Assembly of BiH, in comparison to the Council of Ministers of BiH, in the third ‘election’ quarter had a dramatic decline in the intensity of work and productivity, which resulted in modest efficiency within nine-months. Thus the results of the House of Representatives and House of Peoples made in the first nine months of 2016, are among the worst ones in the last six years. The House of Representatives has considered 258 and the House of Peoples 161 measures.
Positive specificity of the State Parliament in the framework of BiH is a significant participation of representatives in the creation of laws that are being discussed at the meetings of Parliament – representatives were the proponents of an identical number of laws as the Council of Ministers of BiH in the first 9 months of this year. During the first 9 months of 2016, there was a total of 65 laws in the procedure of the Parliamentary Assembly, while the Council of Ministers was the promoter of 34 of them, while proponents of the other 31 were deputies and delegates of PA BiH, either independently or in the context of formal or informal groups.
In spite of poor results in terms of legislative activities of state authorities, for the first 9 months of this year was made significant progress on the path towards Europe. However, we should be fully aware that these are only initial steps and that serious work on the transformation of the country and harmonization with the “European” standards, has yet to come. But for that, we will need much greater responsibility within the political establishment of the country than the one that that we have witnessed all these years.
(Source: Radiosarajevo.ba)
