DIRECTOR SUPPORTED Border Police Union of BiH seeks postponement of retirement age, commissioned personnel would benefit, but not others!

By: Amra Vrabac

The President of the Management Board of the Border Police Union of BiH, Dragan Matović, sent a letter on December 11 to the Union of Police Bodies of BiH, the SIPA Union, and the DKPT Union, informing them that they have initiated an initiative for urgent amendments to the Law on Police Officers of BiH, specifically to change the age limit for retirement, and to specify the conditions for retirement and pension calculation.

The letter, which Patria has seen, states that in a period of three years, the Border Police of BiH will lose more than 340 police officers, and that these amendments aim to enable "police officers with exceptional skills to extend their employment."
Furthermore, the letter emphasizes that a large number of officers who meet the conditions for retirement under the current provisions of the Law on Police Officers of BiH hold the ranks of "chief inspector," "independent inspector," and "senior sergeant," which will be difficult to fill through regular promotion procedures. However, this is precisely the reason for the amendments to the Law. These are ranks with good salaries and total income, and to achieve a higher rank, one must spend three years in the previous rank. However, the Border Police Union of BiH did not consider proposing a reduction of this period, for example, to a year and a half, due to the urgency of the situation and the loss of personnel from this police agency, and to enable younger personnel to be promoted.

Instead, an interest group saw an opportunity to enjoy all the benefits for a while longer instead of a significantly lower pension. For years, promotions within the Border Police of BiH have been carried out according to a "clearly defined plan," and while some advance from rank to rank every three years, others have no chance of advancement because they do not belong to interest groups within this police agency. If such demands from the Union were to be met, it would, on the other hand, temporarily prevent other employees from advancing, and perhaps cause a new wave of departures from the Border Police of BiH or transfers to other agencies.

If the Union were so concerned about the future of the Border Police of BiH, they could have proposed these amendments in the previous three years, during which the procedure for admitting 150 cadets took place, marked by a major corruption scandal that ended with court convictions for several individuals and dismissals for two Border Police officers of BiH. During that time until today, a certain number of police officers who were forced to retire by law would have certainly been retained. Probably, high-ranking personnel and union members were not among them, as is the case now.

The Border Police of BiH has been without a sufficient number of police officers for years, and with the departure of these 340 officers, around 900 will be missing. Although 122 cadets have been in training since the beginning of October 2022, it will take more than half of 2024 for them to be fully integrated into the work process. The total capacity of the Agency for training personnel is 150, and an initiative in the House of Peoples of the BiH Parliament to expand this capacity to train more cadets was rejected, precisely because of the situation in police agencies.

A new competition for the admission of cadets to the Border Police of BiH is underway, but due to the new wave of migration, more police officers are needed at the state border. The question is how prepared are police officers nearing retirement to respond to all challenges in guarding the state border, and whether there are possibilities to combine teams of younger and more experienced personnel. Teams from other police agencies are already participating in border protection, but it is an open question whether, due to this situation, for example, the MUP RS will demand that they take over the supervision of part of the border themselves!?

No one has taken responsibility for the Border Police of BiH being in this situation. Neither former director Zoran Galić, during whose second term the corruption scandal occurred, nor the current director Mirko Kuprešaković, who was late with the proposal for a new competition and analysis of the personnel situation.

A systematic review of employees in the Border Police of BiH has not been conducted since 2008, and the primary tool for police officers is a pistol. There have been several cases of suicides and murders with service pistols. With the amendments proposed by the Union, a police officer would submit a personal request to remain in service with an appropriate medical certificate of psychophysical fitness, but they did not think to propose a mandatory medical examination for all employees.

At the beginning of November, the Border Police of BiH had 1,997 employees, and according to one of the earlier systematizations, the number of employees in the Border Police of BiH should be almost 4,000.

At a meeting held on December 4 between the new leadership of the Union and Director Kuprešaković, the importance of improving working conditions for members of the Border Police of BiH was highlighted, such as paying overtime hours for police officers, signing a collective agreement, amendments to the law on police officers, strengthening personnel and material-technical capacities, and more. Director Kuprešaković supported the initiatives presented by the Union representatives, which would contribute to improving the status of police officers.

The Union's letter states that the Law would come into effect on January 1, 2024.