Helez for NAP: FBiH budget cannot withstand Čović's law on revision of veteran-disability protection!

The budget of the Federation of BiH could soon be burdened with tens of millions of KM, after coalition partners in FBiH agreed to amend the Law on the Implementation of Control of Legality of the Use of Rights from the Field of Veteran-Disability Protection, writes Patria.

Zukan Helez, former federal minister for veteran affairs, abolished the right to monthly veteran-disability compensation for several thousand people a little over two years ago, because they could not prove that their income was legal. 

These are former HVO military officials who were retired under favorable conditions, then disabled individuals who received war disability benefits although they could not prove they were war disabled veterans, and recipients of war decorations, for whom the Ministry assessed that their decorations had no credibility.

Helez confirmed for Patria that this concerns more than 10,000 people, mostly from the area of West Herzegovina.

- After the revision, we said that anyone who provides proper documentation will have their veteran-disability protection reinstated. Unfortunately, people turned to the path of least resistance, political pressure, and now we will have enormous pressure on the budget if these people are reinstated to these rights – Helez said.

After being excluded from veteran-disability rights, appeals were filed with the Constitutional Court of FBiH, which the Court rejected. HDZ BiH then requested that the cases be transferred to cantonal courts. SDA initially rejected such a proposal, but after Čović made the survival of the coalition conditional on transferring these cases from the Constitutional Court of FBiH to cantonal courts, SDA relented. The amendments to the law passed the FBiH Government. Approval from the FBiH Parliament is now awaited.

Helez told Patria that cantonal courts, due to strong political influence on them, will reinstate monthly compensation for thousands of 'suspicious veterans and disabled individuals', which will burden the FBiH budget by tens of millions of KM. Helez said that these same people will demand retroactive payment for all past months, which could seriously jeopardize the FBiH budget.

He proposes an investigation by the prosecutor's offices in the case of disputed veteran benefits. If the prosecutor's offices find that people were illegally excluded from these rights, he is ready to be held criminally responsible. If the investigation shows that he did not break the law, controversial veterans and disabled individuals, he says, cannot be reinstated to the FBiH Budget, writes NAP.