Voted against, and now for: Flexible political principles of SDA on two identical budgets

The BiH Council of Ministers recently familiarized itself with the Draft Law on the Budget of Institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina and International Obligations of Bosnia and Herzegovina for 2017, in which total revenues for financing institutions and receipts are planned at the level of previous years and amount to 950 million KM, writes Patria.

The Draft Law on the Budget of Institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina and International Obligations for 2017 has been proposed for tomorrow's session of the Council of Ministers.

When submitting their suggestions on the budget, ministries were supposed to take into account the commitment of the BiH Council of Ministers to reduce total public spending to a level that allows for real revenues without hindering reforms, and to continue the implementation of restrictive austerity measures in public spending.

Therefore, the fact is that the budget is the same as the previous one, due to which the SDA left the coalition in protest in 2012 and became the opposition at the state level.

At that time, they called the budget miserable and insufficient for the functioning of BiH institutions. Bosniak MPs and delegates from the SDA in 2012 voted against the proposed BiH budget at the sessions of the House of Representatives and the House of Peoples of the Parliamentary Assembly of BiH.

"We cannot feel responsible because we pointed out all the harmful consequences. The budget of BiH covers 7.3 percent of the total funds, and we are saving only on those 7.3 percent, and not on those 97 percent, because the entity budgets are growing," stated the then SDA leader Sulejman Tihić.

Today, in 2016, the situation is the same, the budget is identical to the one from four years ago, there has been no public administration reform, nor any other rationalization or significant savings compared to 2012. One would expect the budget and needs to grow and for spending on certain items to increase, but that is not the case. The SDA is in power this time as well, with its state-level prime minister, who has no intention of stirring up parliamentary trouble.

Today, everything is in order, everything is in perfect harmony, and the functioning of the state-level government is not in question.

It is obvious that political principles are a very flexible concept. The feeling of concern for the country is also flexible, so the same facts are reacted to fiercely at one time and wisely ignored at another.