Mostar City Budget for 2021 Must Be the Result of Dialogue with Citizens

(Patria) - SDP BiH MP in the House of Representatives of the FBiH Parliament Lana Prlić and Aner Žuljević, delegate of SDP BiH in the federal House of Peoples, today submitted an amendment to the Law on Amendments to the Law on FBiH Budgets, with the aim of stopping the practice where two people make a budget of 60 million KM, which would finally enable the citizens of Mostar to transparently participate in the planning of public finances of the City of Mostar after the elections.

Elections in Mostar were held on 20.12.2020, and it is absolutely unnecessary to continue the practice of two people, regardless of who they are, independently making the Mostar city budget of over 60 million KM, when elections have already been held and councilors elected.

"The explanation of the FBiH Government, which assumes some new political crises, represents elements that should be examined by competent institutions and as such are unacceptable to the SDP, because they are used as an alibi for the renewed exclusion of citizens from the aspect of defining the use of funds and subsequent control thereof.

Unfortunately, the aforementioned practice from previous years has proven to be very non-transparent, where two parties, without any citizen involvement, made a party budget, not to mention that the continuation of the practice in question is itself questionable in terms of legality in the new circumstances. We believe that the citizens of Mostar must finally have the right to participate in the drafting of the City of Mostar Budget for 2021, through public debates with newly elected councilors and the new city administration in the interest of transparency and better decisions regarding both the revenue and expenditure sides of the budget.

Also, the involvement of citizens in public finance planning after 10 years represents the first step in restoring damaged trust when it comes to the management of public money.

Finally, in order to ensure the continuity of financing the city's obligations, we consider it entirely sufficient that the amendments to the budget define the exclusive option of temporary financing, as the first quarter is a sufficiently long period for the establishment of a government that, together with the citizens, will transparently and honestly create the budget for 2021," they said.