While BHRT employees volunteer, Karamehmedović sings in a cafe, will numerous public service shows be cancelled?

By Amra Vrabac

BHRT employees received their last salary on April 8, and received 150 KM for warm meals for March at the beginning of May. Since then, not a single mark has been paid to them. Due to this fact, the responsible Minister of Transport and Communications, Edin Forto, who was a guest on BHRT's program this week, is not "ashamed". Although it should have been his primary task to resolve the issue of public services and ensure that the state and management pay employees their earned salaries, Forto apparently believes that employees should volunteer.

However, the difference between Forto's salary and the salaries of most BHRT employees is the amount of seven of their salaries, so it is clear that he cannot even understand what it means to choose between two children to give money for lunch that day. Because some employees are literally in such a situation.

Although he tried to justify himself by saying that he secured 4 million KM in aid, which BHRT has already spent, Forto and his coalition partners should have found a way to distribute the money from the collected fee, which is blocked because there is no agreement between RTV FBiH and BHRT. In the meantime, a criminal complaint has been filed against the management of BHRT for shutting down the FTV signal on May 8.

Bills for utilities, loan installments, proms, school enrollments, food do not wait for better times; BHRT employees are taking on debt and borrowing money to survive the month, because they cannot do so from their work.

And while the employees are volunteering and wondering if they will have anything to eat tomorrow, their general director Belmin Karamehmedović was filmed in a cheerful and relaxed mood in a Sarajevo cafe. What can be expected from a man who secretly drove a Jaguar a few years ago and complained to acquaintances that he could not come to work by car so that the employees would not see him. Belmin Karamehmedović's monthly salary is equivalent to five average salaries of BHRT employees.

On the same day that BHRT produced the program Večernjakov pečat, an appeal from the BHRT Trade Union was published on the BHRT portal asking for help for the employees because they had hit a wall.

And precisely today, when the BHRT Collegium, consisting of Karamehmedović and program editors, discussed the possible cancellation of certain shows, i.e., the reduction of the program in the coming period, the "successful realization of Večernjakov pečat" was celebrated in another Sarajevo restaurant.

Although we previously asked the BHRT management to reveal the benefits of this media house from the realization of this program and how much was paid for the broadcast of the event, we did not receive an answer.

All the false glamour and shine of May 17 could not hide the misery that Karamehmedović had prepared for the employees. More hungry than full, they await news day after day about when their earned salaries will be deposited into their accounts.

But perhaps it is time for Karamehmedović and his Jaguar to leave first.

While his employees struggle to survive for 2 months because they don't receive salaries he refuses to sign, he is partying and celebrating the 60th anniversary of Minjo Restaurant in the company of the "elite" entertained by a fallen husband in a semi-drunken state. Belmin Karamehmedović, general director with an atrophied cheek. pic.twitter.com/eNQKXpBmxD

— Almedin Šišić (@AlmedinSisic) May 22, 2024