Karamehmedović: Patriotic speeches are not a state, the state is saving the Public Service of BiH

(Patria) - It is shameful that we have come to a situation where we are demanding our rights on the street, after years of agony at BHRT. The state is not about delivering patriotic speeches; the state is about saving the Public Service of Bosnia and Herzegovina, said the acting General Director of BHRT, Belmin Karamehmedović, at today's protest rally in front of the building of the institutions of BiH.

Karamehmedović emphasized that BHRT, throughout all these years since the Radio Television of Republika Srpska unlawfully stopped paying its share of the RTV fee to the Public RTV Service of BiH in 2017, has nevertheless fulfilled all its programming obligations.

"We are still working, even though 60 percent of employees have minimum wages," he stressed.

The acting General Director stated that the management has sent urgent requests to the Parliamentary Assembly of BiH, the Council of Ministers of BiH, and the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council of BiH to resolve the pressing problems of BHRT.

The Executive Director of the Program Sector of RTV FBiH, Ivan Pavković, emphasized that shutting down BHRT is unthinkable.

"We cannot imagine a situation if BHRT were to be shut down; that is the worst option, complete darkness from the RTV house, the closure of both houses," he stressed.

According to his words, the managements and supervisory boards of BHRT and RTV FBiH are trying to resolve the issue of collecting the RTV fee.

"We are trying to put out the fire... It is a shame that employees of the Public Service are trying to solve their problems in this way," Pavković assessed.

Member of the Supervisory Board of BHRT, Valentina Rupčić, reminded that the RTV fee has remained the same since 2013, despite enormous inflation.

"We have launched initiatives and concrete steps regarding the increase of the RTV fee. Together with FTV, we sent individual and then a joint request to the Communications Regulatory Agency for the RTV fee to be 10 KM. The system board has not been functioning for a long period. We were simply forced to have two managements and two supervisory boards react," Rupčić stated.