BiH: Where did billions in donor money end up?

No one in Bosnia and Herzegovina knows exactly how much donor money has arrived in the country since the end of the war to date. It is also not precisely known how much of that money was spent non-purposefully and ended up in private pockets. Some representatives of non-governmental organizations have claimed that it amounts to more than 20 billion euros, reports the Patria News Agency.  

Data on where the approximately 40 billion convertible marks in aid that arrived in BiH during and after the war ended up remains a great mystery.

According to data from the Bureau for Humanitarian Affairs, BiH received the most donations per capita between 1996 and 2003. No one has precise records and figures, so everything remains speculative. The Association of Displaced Persons states that around 16 billion convertible marks arrived solely for destroyed buildings in BiH.

Commissions at the BiH parliamentary level that investigated who spent and how donor funds arriving in BiH were spent have been replaced over the years. As far as is known, none have arrived at the figure of the exact amount..
 
Even if there could have been a billion convertible marks error in determining the expenditure of donor funds, the shocking figure actually indicates that, if such a large sum can have errors, how much money was actually spent and embezzled, and into whose pockets it went.

- It went to everything imaginable, there was even 'I give you a donation - you give me a percentage' - claims economist Svetlana Cenić.

Determining the fate of donations is a job for investigative bodies, Transparency International believes, stating that this should have been done from the very beginning. 

- I fear now that it is too late and that after 20 years it will be impossible to determine who was responsible at that time and, ultimately, where the money ended up - says Ivana Korajlić from Transparency International.

The fact that foreign donors have lost confidence in domestic institutions, through which they sent aid for years, is best illustrated by the example of the period after the floods. At that time, donors from abroad transferred money to private accounts of the affected, bypassing responsible institutions, BNTV reported.