Investment godfathers and wedding guests: Pre-election millions and billions are piling up in BiH

By Sead Omeragić

Bosnia and Herzegovina has been flooded with media announcements of investments, highway construction, donations, ceremonial work starts and groundbreaking ceremonies in the last month, writes the Patria News Agency.

Buroy Ozone is an investment that has been pompously announced for years. We had several signatures and a ceremonial groundbreaking ceremony on September 19, attended by the "second league" of the Party of Democratic Action (SDA), the increasingly less visible SDA Vice-President Asim Sarajlić, Federation Prime Minister Fadil Novalić, and Trnovo Mayor Ibro Berilo.

If someone were to invest 2 billion euros in neighboring countries, or even in any country in powerful Western Europe, every effort would be made to celebrate that act. But, there was not a single member of the Presidency of BiH, nor the state government Prime Minister Denis Zvizdić or state Minister of Finance Vjekoslav Bevanda.

The investment, announced for almost two years, is allegedly to be completed in 2025, in about ten years. So, out of 264 months before and after Buroy Ozone, this September, two weeks before the elections, was chosen for the ceremonial start of work.

Photos have just emerged showing investors from South Korea arriving at Bjelašnica, who will invest as much as 400 million KM in the Hadžići municipality. The investors were photographed in a meadow, next to a parked car. Nowhere in the frame were the mayor or any municipal official.

More than a year ago, Saudi Arabia approved a donation of 10 million dollars for a scientific institute within SSST University, owned by Prof. Dr. Ejup Ganić. A year later, the donation was formalized with a contract. Why the year-long wait for the signature on this document? And all this just 15 days before the elections?

There is no country in the world that has received more investments and donations in one month than Bosnia has this September.

In the twenty-one years of peace, BiH has not received even a five-hundredth of what has entered in these twenty-odd days right before the local elections.

Pre-election investment promises continued with the signing of an agreement between the Government of Sarajevo Canton and the State Investment Fund from Dubai. The agreement is "framework" and allegedly means multi-million investments in BiH. So, there are no concrete programs, but there is a "framework" agreement, on the eve of the elections.

After all this, an announcement of huge investments of one billion euros from Azerbaijan emerged, just half a month before the elections. It should be known that Azerbaijan has provided loans to Serbia and Montenegro by employing its own construction companies to recoup its money twofold through highway construction and loan repayment.

"Next year, BiH will become the largest construction site in the region," SDA leader Bakir Izetbegović told us before these local elections, who, before the general elections, announced the employment of 100,000 unemployed people. He has not yet opened a single factory, but he persistently talks about increasing employment. Now he is also promising us the largest construction site in the region.

There were no investments or contracts in BiH until the start of the one-month campaign for the local elections. Bosnia and Herzegovina has not had any investment cycles so far, unlike other normal countries.

The only investment cycle in the history of this country is being announced for this September, before the elections. One must ask: If there is any background to these investment announcements, why are they all concentrated in this one month of the election campaign? Why have all these piles of money waited for this month of local election campaigns? Have the donors and investors consciously participated in this pre-election campaign?

Ordinary people might believe them if, just seven days ago, the IMF loan tranche, with which the world bought another period of peace and social survival in Bosnia and Herzegovina, had not been eagerly awaited.

Ordinary people might believe them if they had not sold another golden goose – the Sarajevo Tobacco Factory – for 20 percent less than its value. They previously claimed it was a major investor, British American Tobacco (BAT), and then it turned out to be a mysterious private individual from Vienna. The most tragic part was when the state owner, in the person of Federation Prime Minister Fadil Novalić, announced the wrong buyer. The buyer is not important, the announcement is. And we have heard enough announcements.

Secondly, as everything smells of pre-election promises and deceptions, it would be wise to remind this government that BiH is accountable to Moneyval, the anti-money laundering organization, and that laws have been adopted that strictly regulate numerous issues in this domain. It is necessary to consider the credibility of the alleged investors, as there could be more harm than good from all of this.

The influx of investments this September has rounded up to about 6.5 billion KM. In just one month, more than 3,250 KM per inhabitant of the Federation.

Pre-election millions and billions are piling up day by day. The godfathers of investments are taking turns. Be good until October, we'll manage afterwards. Someone might think that the investors caused the traffic jams at the border crossings.