Brčko prepares new aid for its businessmen

The Mayor of Brčko District of BiH, Esed Kadrić, organized a meeting today with representatives of the Association of Caterers of Brčko District of BiH, where their demands, necessary for the survival of catering and preservation of jobs during the coronavirus pandemic, were discussed, it was announced from the Mayor's Cabinet.

Given that the pandemic has been ongoing for more than a year and that caterers are facing a number of problems, they highlighted the following as their main demands:

• Exemption from paying rent for public space tenants
• Exemption from paying rent for tenants of business premises owned by the city, as well as subsidizing an appropriate amount of rent for tenants that caterers pay for premises leased from other legal and natural persons
• Subsidizing obligations for catering workers' wages (taxes and contributions)
• Aligning all measures with surrounding cities (working hours, limiting the number of guests in premises and at the same table), in order to protect competition and prevent the concentration of a larger number of people in the same place
• Exemption from paying waste disposal services for the entire period of closure of catering facilities, as well as a proportional reduction in bills for the service in the period of restricted working hours.

Mayor Esed Kadrić emphasized that Brčko District of BiH has paid approximately 8,800,000 convertible marks for aid to businesses affected by the pandemic in the past period, and announced that the first aid program for this year is being prepared, which will be paid out successively, month by month, for which an initial 1,500,000 KM has been secured in the budget for 2021.

“When making decisions at the Crisis Staff, we always think about both the health sector and the business sector, in order to act in the best possible way at the given moment. We will analyze all your proposals to see in which directions we can still act in order to preserve, and later recover, the catering and tourism sector,” said Mayor Kadrić.

Representatives of caterers thanked Mayor Kadrić for the reception, emphasizing that this is the first official meeting organized with decision-makers since the beginning of the pandemic.

“We are pleased that you had the understanding to talk with us and hear our demands. We are aware of the circumstances that certain measures must be adopted and respected, and we do not avoid them, but we cannot do it alone, given the significant losses we have suffered. It is necessary for us to act responsibly together with you, but also with the citizens,” concluded the representatives of the caterers.