Velibor Peulić, the main coordinator of the Logistics Consortium of Bosnia and Herzegovina, said that so far, during the previously announced protests of transporters throughout BiH, there have been no incidents, that the supply chain has been stopped at the approaches to cities in BiH, and that congestion has increased slightly.
He added that in every local community in BiH, “from the Una River to the Drina River, from the Sava to the sea”, transporters are protesting until their demands are met.
According to information from BIHAMK, the cargo terminal is currently blocked at the border crossings of Izačić, Velika Kladuša, Kamensko and Rača, while there are no major difficulties for the passenger program.
When it comes to Sarajevo, congestion has been recorded from the direction of Stup towards Rajlovac.
When asked what the estimated damage to BiH caused by the first day of the blockade throughout BiH would be, the Consortium coordinator replied that he did not know, but that he knew that their vehicles were losing 14.5 hours a day at border crossings.
“For eight hours, we pay for the inaction of the administration at border crossings, on average one person per person,” said Peulić.
He repeated their four groups of demands, the first of which is to restore trust and protect BiH citizens who work as drivers in the European Union.
The second is the return of excise duties, the third is the regulation of statutory problems of transporters that they have in terms of regulations and other legal acts.
“Zoran Tegeltija, as the director of the Indirect Taxation Administration, has not met any of our expectations. Border terminals are a bottleneck in BiH. Inspections have not responded to our calls to listen to us about our problems. When all these demands are added up in four groups, it is realistic to expect a response from the competent institutions and that today, in an active atmosphere, we begin to solve these problems,” Peulić emphasized.
He also emphasized that BiH transporters are not blocking citizens, but are only stopping the flow of goods and thus protesting.
“This means that enough is enough, for 20 years the bureaucracy has been working to burden the transport industry, and the competent institutions, the director of the Indirect Taxation Administration, have done nothing, and the Minister of Communications and Transport of BiH, Edin Forto, has not implemented any of the 17 points. We can only say that we have initiated some contacts with certain people, but that does not mean anything. We are also asking the Government of the Federation and the Government of Republika Srpska for unanimous consent on the return of excise duties,” he said.
In a statement to Fena, he said that he hopes that the BiH transport industry, which they are fighting for, will have its own future and that it will open 15,000 new jobs, and not drive them out of this area.
