While the government fights for positions, pensioners in our country are forced onto the streets. Their status is poor, their income is insufficient, and their struggle is currently futile. About two thousand pensioners gathered for peaceful protests in Tuzla. They are dissatisfied with the latest decisions of the Federation Government, which, they say, further worsen the already difficult position of pensioners. Interestingly, the protests were not supported by the Federation Pensioners’ Union, but were characterized as an individual party statement by the New Pensioners’ Party. Let us recall that the lowest pension in the Federation, paid for December, was 573 BAM.
The life of pensioners in this country has become unbearable, says Mehmed Terzić, a former TTU employee, who fought for years without a salary until he received his pension, and now he cannot even meet his basic living needs with it.
“Unfortunately, this is the situation, this is the country. There will be no progress if we do not protest and demand our rights. A liter of oil is 3.80 BAM, medicines have increased in price by 30%, how can that pensioner survive?” she asks.
It is evident, say pensioners, that the prices of almost all products and services are constantly rising, but the amount of pensions does not even remotely follow them, but it seems that no one in power cares about that.
“If it weren’t for children, there would be no way to survive. Medicines and food are very expensive, the price is different every day, utilities, for a minimum pension it is terrible. They should be given one month to live on that pension so that they can see how they can cope,” says pensioner Mirsada Kurtić.
“We are angry that they treat us this way. When you work for forty years and get that amount of pension, you can’t make ends meet,” added pensioner Zehra Mujezinović.
That’s why we have a society of extremely rich and worryingly poor citizens, the protest organizers concluded, announcing new ones, until their set conditions are met.
“We demand that average pensions be 52% of the average salary, we demand that these ratios be harmonized every quarter. In the future, we will demand that feudal benefits of those in power, which are nowhere to be found in Europe, be reduced. We are asking for logical things, we are asking for European parameters, not Asian-African ones,” said Vehid Jahić, president of the New Pensioners’ Party.
“We are not asking for anything that does not belong to us, we are just asking for what we have earned. If we cannot achieve that, then I don’t see the point of living,” added Nedžad Gavranović, president of the Main Board of the New Pensioners’ Party Tuzla.
Federation of FBiH pensioners’ associations did not support these protests, explaining that it was an individual party performance. They also pointed out that pensioners should seek their rights in Sarajevo, where laws are passed, which they will do en masse in April, if the Government of the Federation does not fulfill their previously submitted demands by then, Federalna writes.
Photo: Vox
