Issuance of Documents Questionable Due to Budgetary Complications and Funding Cuts

(Patria) - The Agency for Identification Documents, Registers and Data Exchange of Bosnia and Herzegovina (IDDEEA), as a budget beneficiary, duly and timely submitted its budget proposal to the Ministry of Finance and Treasury of Bosnia and Herzegovina, based on actual expenditure, valid contracts and obligations to citizens and institutions.

Through the further process of drafting and adopting the budget, which involves several state-level institutions, certain budget items were amended and reduced. IDDEEA has no insight into at which stage and by which institution these changes were made. Consequently, at the time of the final adoption of the budget, IDDEEA was already placed in a financial deficit. The Agency does not adopt the budget and cannot change decisions imposed on it, nor does it influence the decisions of the bodies responsible for the budget process - state officials from IDDEEA.

In order to ensure minimum conditions for functioning, IDDEEA has already submitted a request for restructuring its own budget, as well as a request for the allocation of additional funds from the budget reserve of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Thus, the Agency, as stated in the press release, has exhausted all possibilities provided by law. Further decisions are within the exclusive competence of the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

As a consequence of the imposed budget framework, we will find ourselves in a situation where it will not be possible to timely settle obligations to suppliers, even though IDDEEA has fully fulfilled all its obligations. If someone believes that the state no longer needs personal documents, passports, license plates, driver's licenses or maintenance of information networks, then that is a decision of the institutions that create and adopt the budget, not the Agency - the press release emphasizes.

Therefore, as added in the press release, this problem is not a problem of IDDEEA, but a problem of budget planning at the state level. The consequences of such decisions directly affect the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina and all institutions to which IDDEEA provides services.

- At the same time, we want to clearly state that IDDEEA will not undertake anything that is beyond its legal authority. We will act exclusively in accordance with the law and the instructions of the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which is responsible for creating the financial and operational framework within which the Agency operates - the press release adds.

From IDDEEA, they emphasize that they will continue to professionally perform all tasks within their competence, but that citizens and institutions must know that the Agency bears the consequences of the budget allocated to it, not the one it requested and clearly justified.

- Once again, we emphasize that IDDEEA has done its legal job: we submitted the budget proposal to the Ministry of Finance of Bosnia and Herzegovina in accordance with all procedures. Who, in the further chain of decision-making – the Ministry of Finance of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the House of Representatives of Bosnia and Herzegovina or the House of Peoples of Bosnia and Herzegovina, changed these items, we do not know - state officials from IDDEEA in the press release for the public.