Penalized for Refusing Obedience: Brčko Mayor Suspends Salaries of Five Employees

The Mayor of Brčko District has ordered the suspension of salaries for five administration employees after they failed to comply with his order, writes the Bosnian news agency Patria, which has also obtained a copy of the disputed order from the Brčko mayor.

Anto Domić signed an order last week instructing the Directorate for Finance not to pay the September salaries to five employees, because even after two months – as members of a working group – they had not submitted the organizational work plan of the Education Department, which, the mayor claims, caused problems in the regular conduct of classes in Brčko schools.

The employees' salaries will be paid only after Domić approves it. The employees penalized for insubordination are: Siniša Ravlić, Slobodan Ristić, Mehmed Topčagić, Slavoljub Bašić, and Admir Bilalović.

However, members of the penalized working group cite entirely different reasons as the real causes for the suspension of their salaries. Sources close to the working group claim to the Patria agency that Mayor Domić actually asked the working group members to simply sign a draft he had prepared instead of them, in which he had provided for unnecessary new positions for his people, as well as money for the salaries of four Croatian teachers who do not teach children in schools at all. When the group rejected his proposal, the mayor ordered the suspension of their salaries as punishment for disobedience.

The decision of Mayor Domić, according to Patria's sources from the Brčko District administration, is completely illegal, which could get him into trouble.