Police protest in front of BiH Presidency, demand higher Salaries

Today, respecting the epidemiological measures, the Federation of Trade Unions of Police Bodies of Bosnia and Herzegovina organized peaceful protests in front of the building of the Presidency of BiH, and on that occasion they pointed out the bad conditions in which they work.

As they stated, the main reason for organizing the protest is the demand for higher salaries.

Namely, police officers went to the streets after the decision of the Council of Ministers of BiH to keep the salaries of employees in police bodies at the level of the previous nine years.

However, in the meantime, compared to 2012, when there was a reduction in salaries, the budget of BiH institutions increased from 950 million to 1 billion and 27 million BAM, or by eight percent, but despite that, salaries remained unchanged.

Dragan Krvavac, president of the Federation of Trade Unions, said that they are one legal body that brings together all employees in police bodies at the level of BiH.

“Since the Alliance has existed, we want to have a social dialogue. However, due to the transfer of the ball from one to another or a third, we decided to take this step out of desperation. We spoke with two members of the Presidency – Sefik Dzaferovic and Zeljko Komsic. We started to get better. We did not ask for a retroactive return of our salaries, but we asked for a refund of part of the money, for the bases to be like in 2008, but because of the pandemic, we also agreed to the base from 2012, “Krvavac said.

He further added that even the Council of Ministers of BiH supported this proposal and that the budget was sent to the Presidency of BiH, however, that the same ones who promised it returned it to the Council of Ministers.

He reminded that a police officer at the state level has a salary of 890 BAM with all duties. “All the help that BiH received was distributed to the entities, not even the mark came to the state level. We have the lowest salaries compared to all levels in BiH. Nothing is going on in this country. We have members of SIPA and DKP. A police officer who insures of one such official, the ratio is 1:10, the problem arose when he was supposed to receive an increase of 24 BAM “, Krvavac emphasized.

In addition to salaries, police officers’ uniforms are also a problem. The Rulebook on Police Uniforms was adopted in 2017, but was not published, and it was intended to make it unique for all officers with different designations for belonging to a particular agency.

As he said, an additional problem is the systematic examinations that have not taken place among police officers in the last 15 years, Klix.ba writes.

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