The authorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina have finally realized that they need to do something about the big increase in the prices of all products. The planned measures are still uncertain or in preparation. During that time, citizens are spending more and more money at their disposal and are starting to give up their usual products.
Initiatives to abolish fuel excise taxes and reduce the VAT rate have only skipped the first step in parliament. By the will of the delegates in the House of Peoples, they can become operational, but the warnings from the Indirect Taxation Authority are that at least six months are needed to implement the idea of differentiated VAT rates. Prices, however, are rising on a daily basis. Can they be stopped by other measures?
“We will try to act through the margins adopted by the entity governments a year ago, then interventions from stocks owned by the entities, subsidies for certain products, including energy for the most vulnerable categories of the population …”, says BiH Council of Ministers Chairman Zoran Tegeltija.
The limitation of margins is not, nor will it affect prices, because production prices are rising, economists estimate. They are convinced that interventions from stocks and commodity reserves will certainly not stop the rise in prices.
“We do not have state-owned companies that supply citizens, we do not have state-owned gas stations that will now sell fuel at a lower price, so they will put pressure on other private companies and companies that are distributors,” said economist Zoran Pavlovic.
Consumer associations warn of unrealistically high energy prices and a general increase of 30 to 50 percent on average.
“We will support all measures, of course, but we are witnessing that a barrel of oil became cheaper on the world market by some 13 dollars, which would mean that these figures we see today at gas stations are not realistic. No figure over three BAM should have been reached,” said Murisa Maric from the Association of Consumers “Don”, Prijedor.
In anticipation of any measures that would curb the rampage of prices, citizens are beginning to give up some everyday used products.
Our interlocutors point out that measures to suppress prices must be adopted as soon as possible. Proposals for direct support from the budget to the most endangered citizens are also heard, for which a rebalance is needed.
Source: BHRT
