The Prime Minister of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH), Fadil Novalic, strongly reacted to the statements made in an interview by the United States (U.S.) Ambassador to BiH Michael Murphy, which refer to the criticism of the FBiH Government, which Murphy in one part called ”non-existent”, referring to the fact that it is a technical mandate.
Novalic rseacted on his official Facebook account two days ago by saying that ”the non-existent Government today submitted to the Parliament of the FBiH the largest Budget of the FBiH in the amount of 6.7 billion BAM”.
Furthermore, Novalic’s statement is, we can safely say, reckless if we take into account that Murphy did not name him anywhere in the interview, but spoke in general about the entire convocation of the FBiH Government. However, apparently, the Prime Minister of the FBiH felt ”the most called out”, so he was probably the only one who decided to react.
”With all the respect and gratitude for the inestimably important role and support of the U.S., which were and remain among the greatest friends of BiH, and which support the sovereignty and territorial integrity of our country, I cannot help expressing my surprise at certain statements made by the U.S. ambassador in an interview,” Novalic began his reaction.
Then he reflected on what specifically bothered him in Murphy’s statements.
”First of all, statements like ”we are in the process of forming the government after the elections…” and ”we will have a state government formed at the beginning of the next year… clearly point to your involvement in the election and post-election process in our country in a way that is not appropriate for a foreign diplomat,” Novalic added.
Then he asked the U.S. ambassador for additional clarifications, as he emphasizes, ”to avoid any misinterpretations”.
”I assessed that you should clarify to our public whether the statements you made are the official position of the U.S. State Department, which I doubt, given that many sources in the U.S. state that your country is a ”victim” of serious involvement by a third party, Russia, that is Putin, in the elections in your country. Your statement that ”we are talking about a potential federal government, and we haven’t had one for eight years…” points to the same. I am convinced that our public is surprised by the ignorance of the basic facts about the country of your service because everyone knows that the federal government exists and has been working for eight years in accordance with the current legal regulations of our country,” emphasizes Novalic. The new Government of the FBiH was not formed after the 2018 elections only because of HDZ blockades, which they never hid, publicly conditioning the formation of the government on changes to the Election Law of BiH.
Novalic underlined that this does not mean that there was no government.
”On the contrary, that ”non-existent” government, among other things, stimulated industrial growth, increased employment, increased pensions several times, implemented complex reforms, stabilized and multiplied the budget, which this year the ”non-existent” government is proposing in the record amount of 6.7 billion BAM. I will remind you that this Government was elected in 2015 based on the results of the elections and that the composition of the Government of the Federation if it had been elected in 2018 would not have changed significantly, again based on the results of the elections, but the fact remains that the HDZ blocked it. Whether it is ”unfortunately” or not, these elections showed, that is, the composition of the House of Peoples and the majority that the SDA won again,” he pointed out.
Moreover, he recalled that, as he says, ”the mess left us by the previous Government, which was precisely the forerunners of today’s elevens, eights, threes and the huge debts we found in the budget”.
”This Government, since I have been Prime Minister, not that it has ”patched up the holes” created by the previous Government, but it has never been in the red, even though we were facing big problems brought about by, firstly, the COVID-19 pandemic, and then the Russian aggression against Ukraine, which disrupted the market all over the world, leading to an economic and energy crisis that European citizens are also facing. But despite all the problems and the help we provided to the economy, the cantons, and our institutions so that they could better deal with the crisis, I never allowed pensions or any other social benefits to be late,” Novalic stated.
At the same time, Novalic pointed out, they managed to invest in numerous projects, which is why even the media which ”never liked him”, wrote this summer that the Federation is becoming a big construction site.
”You could never read anywhere that this government does not have the means to fulfill its obligations or to help its citizens, or that this government is in debt, or that we are selling our bonds to pay salaries to someone… There are exact indicators for everything I am saying. I have never been involved in politicking or spinning, I am an engineer who is guided by mathematics and results,” Novalic concluded, Klix.ba reports.
E.Dz.
