In the last 17 years, ie from 2004 until last year, 316.29 million BAM was paid to political entities from the budgets of all levels of government, as the Central Election Commission (CEC) of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) confirmed.
To recall, the Law on Financing of Political Parties stipulates that they can be financed from the budget of BiH, then from the entity and cantonal reserves, as well as the budget of the Brcko District, and the budget of other units of local government and self-government.
At the request of the CEC of BiH, data on payments to parties from the budget, when it comes to last year, were not submitted by the Herzegovina-Neretva Canton (HNC) in the Federation of BiH (FBiH) and the municipality of Trnovo in Republika Srpska (RS).
Without HNC and Trnovo, and according to the data that were collected by the CEC, 16.672.376 BAM were planned for the financing of political entities in 2020.
“92.92 percent of the planned amount was paid, more precisely 15.492.646 BAM were paid to political entities,” the CEC of BiH stated.
More specifically, close to six million marks were paid to political parties from the budgets of municipalities and cities in BiH, during the last year, while 260.000 BAM went from the Brcko District treasury for these purposes.
Last year, cantons in FBiH gave 2.863.968 BAM to political entities, while 1.770.702 BAM went from the FBiH budget. 3.597.916 BAM were given to political entities from the budget of Srpska, and 580.218 BAM from the budget of BiH. An additional 361.940 BAM was transferred from the BiH budget for the work of clubs.
From 2004 to 2008, budget allocations for party financing were raised. This was followed by oscillations in the amounts. Last year, the allocations to political entities were lower by 18% compared to 2019.
According to available data, collected by the CEC of BiH, more than 30 municipalities and cities during 2020 did not give a single mark for financing political parties, Nezavisne Novine writes.
E.Dz.
