It Pays to be the Driver for Čović and Špirić: Low Daily Allowances, Then an Extra 10,000 KM Each for Overtime!

(Patria) - The Secretariat of the Parliamentary Assembly of BiH provided data in response to a parliamentary question regarding daily allowances paid for official trips to the members of the Collegium of the House of Peoples of the PA BiH, Dragan Čović and Nikola Špirić, for the period from January 2023 to August 13, 2025, for trips within BiH and abroad, as well as data for their drivers.

Although the House of Peoples of the PA BiH holds sessions once a month, with the last one held on July 17, and Čović is most often replaced by Marina Pendeš at meetings the Collegium has with various delegations, he managed to claim both domestic and foreign daily allowances. Čović is a regular visitor to Zagreb, so for 2025, his foreign daily allowances include 25 daily allowances for which he was paid 2,983 KM. For the same period, he had three daily allowances within BiH for which he was paid 120 KM. Thus, it can be said that Čović works more outside BiH than within BiH.

Čović had the most daily allowances in 2023, with 38 for foreign trips and 27 within BiH. He then collected 4,472.15 KM. In 2024, he had 36.5 daily allowances for foreign travel, for which he collected 3,983 KM, and 15 within BiH, totaling 4,479 KM.

Regarding Dragan Čović's driver, he collected 7,364.50 KM in daily allowances over three years.

In the same period, the driver also received overtime pay, for which he collected as much as 10,458.49 KM for 1,235 overtime hours.

The response provided to state representative Šemsudin Mehmedović did not explain how Dragan Čović's driver accumulated so many overtime hours.

As for Nikola Špirić, for the period 2023-2025, he had only seven foreign daily allowances and collected 691.20 KM, while he had no domestic daily allowances. In the same period, his driver had six foreign daily allowances for which he collected 639 KM. However, despite not having domestic daily allowances, his driver managed to accumulate 1,150 overtime hours, for which he was paid 9,838.72 KM.

It seems that being the driver for Dragan Čović and Nikola Špirić pays off in this country, even though it is clear that some of these overtime hours were accumulated during private or party activities, not those related to the function of the Speaker or Deputy Speaker of the House.