Federal Government Paid 60 Million KM to Craftsmen, Supported 44,056 Jobs

SARAJEVO, (Patria) - From the budget of the Federation of BiH at the end of January this year, almost 60 million marks in aid were paid out to mitigate the consequences of the pandemic for crafts and other self-employed activities for 24,766 users in FBiH. 

In this way, a total of 44,056 jobs in the Federation of BiH were supported. The entire process - from the publication of the Public Call to the transfer of funds to the craftsmen's accounts - was contactless, i.e., online and took 40 days. Digitalization has shown in the best possible way what a powerful tool it is for saving time in data collection and providing statistics.

The Federal Ministry of Development, Crafts and Entrepreneurship created an application and opened a link through which they communicated with users. There was no need to collect and submit documentation or waste time in queues.

The Assistant Minister in the Federal Ministry of Development, Entrepreneurship and Crafts, Izedin Kurtović, emphasizes that the complete and efficient electronic procedure was possible due to the impeccable cooperation of several institutions.

- The Tax Administration of the Federation of BiH, the Indirect Taxation Authority of BiH, and the Central Bank of BiH, together with us, worked on data harmonization three times, extremely efficiently and accurately. Only maximum coordination in work could lead to such a result in a short time - emphasizes Kurtović.

The financial aid is intended for the refund of the already paid part of gross wages for employees, or the part of contributions calculated on the prescribed basis for calculating contributions for owners.

- All crafts and other self-employed activities that duly settle their obligations, based on the official records of the Tax Administration of the Federation of BiH, as well as the Indirect Taxation Authority of BiH, were entitled to financial aid under this regulation. Thus, we already had a preliminary list of users in November and set a deadline for corrections and data additions - added Kurtović. 

The second data exchange was carried out at the end of November last year, and the final list of users was published in December 2021.

 - The entire process lasted about 45 days, and it was also possible to submit appeals within the given deadline, and we accepted about 500 appeals that were founded. Mistakes can happen to anyone, and our intention was to assist all regular payers. The key for the distribution of funds was the average number of employees over a 12-month period. The regulation on aid to craftsmen is the result of the efforts of the Government of the Federation of BiH to continue finding measures to help the economy, due to difficulties in the operations of small economy entities - concludes Kurtović.