Republika Srpska will have 1.7 billion BAM of loans due next year. The RS government will certainly look for a way to take on new debt to repay it, but the space for borrowing is narrowing, said Jelena Trivić, president of the People’s Front, today.
She said at a press conference that each subsequent year makes it more difficult to repay the loans, and warned that RS is twice as indebted as the Federation of BiH.
“Our total debt is around 6.7 billion BAM, and the Federation of BiH is 6.8 billion, which is twice as large in terms of population and GDP. Per capita debt in RS is more than 6,000 BAM, and in the FBiH it is around 3,000 BAM. These are all official data from the Ministry of Finance and Treasury of BiH,” Trivić specified.
She added that government representatives are trying to impose the thesis that some more developed countries are more indebted than RS, but she claims that such a parallel cannot be made.
“Developed countries have a large and potent debt repayment capacity, i.e. high and stable incomes, and debt repayment is not in question. While each year is getting harder for us in the sense that repayment is a burden on Republika Srpska. Therefore, the debt flow is problematic, the high installments are stopping faster economic growth,” Trivić stated.
She also warned of the fact that there are fewer workers than pensioners in Republika Srpska. According to data from republican institutions, as she added, there are more than 293,000 pensioners and 289,000 workers.
“We will create a program for the Serbian New Deal on how to get the economy going. We need a complete renovation for which the government has the funds, but it will not do it because it directs everything into spending. We will do it when there is a change of government,” Trivić said.
She recalled that she spoke out regarding the decision of the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which rejected Milorad Dodik’s appeal, but she reiterated that she regretted “that we lost three years because someone kept us captive in a political crisis”.
“And after that, the RSNA also withdrew what was not needed. They withdrew the Law on Property and say that they are not traitors. Well, they are,” said Trivić.
