Waiting for the Ministry of Finance: Suspend salaries of parliamentarians when they are not working

SARAJevo, (Patria) - More than a year of blockade of legislative power has harmed the citizens of this country the most. Elected representatives have been duly collecting their non-work. However, on January 16th, the session of the House of Representatives might discuss the request of representative Šemsudin Mehmedović, who submitted an initiative demanding an amendment to the Decision of the Administrative Commission, to the effect that the salaries of representatives be suspended for every month during the blockade of the House of Representatives' work in which at least one session of the House is not held, as well as for all representatives who do not attend at least one session in the current month.

Also, with this initiative, according to representative Mehmedović, he wants to encourage the Council of Ministers of BiH to submit amendments to the Law on Salaries and Allowances to the parliamentary procedure, which would precisely define this area in such cases.

The Ministry of Finance and Treasury of BiH stated in their response that they will consider the initiative in question during the next amendment of the Law on Salaries and Allowances in the institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Let us remind you, in just four months, 750,763 KM were paid into the accounts of state parliamentarians from the pockets of the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The salaries of deputies in the state parliament in BiH range up to more than 5,000 KM. Therefore, the salary of a state deputy is eight times higher than the average salary in the country. The salaries of deputies in BiH are already about 12 times higher than the average pension in the country, which means that one state deputy earns in a month what an average BiH pensioner earns in almost two years.