WHO WILL LEAD SIPA: Ćulum Wants Another Term, but Nešić Submits the Final Proposal to the BiH Council of Ministers

(Patria) - The Independent Board of the BiH Parliamentary Assembly sent on June 3 to the Joint Service of the Secretariat of the BiH Parliamentary Assembly the text of the Public Call for conducting the procedure of selecting candidates for the position of Director of the State Investigation and Protection Agency (SIPA). In the latest issue of the Official Gazette of BiH dated June 4, the call was not published, but it will also be published in three daily newspapers in BiH.

From the day of publication, it remains open for 15 days.

After the call closes, candidates who meet the requirements will be invited for an interview conducted by the Independent Board of the BiH Parliamentary Assembly, which sends a ranking list to the Minister of Security of BiH.

The list submitted by the Independent Board to the BiH Council of Ministers may contain a maximum of five candidates.

The mandate of the current SIPA Director Darko Ćulum expires in July, and regardless of the procedure, which will not be completed by then, he remains in the position of director until the BiH Council of Ministers appoints a new director.

It is no secret that Ćulum wants another term at the helm of SIPA, but according to Patria's information, he would meet the conditions for retirement halfway through the mandate. However, this is something the Independent Board should assess, which will request data on the total length of service from the PIO/MIO of the Republika Srpska for Darko Ćulum.

Besides Ćulum, several other candidates close to the BiH Minister of Security Nenad Nešić are expected to apply for the call.

Thus, it is expected that Branimir Šehovac, Chief of the East Sarajevo Police Department, Ljubiša Pandurević, Chief of the Financial Intelligence Department of SIPA in Banja Luka, and Milosav Savković, Chief of the Service for the Protection of Integrity and Legality in the Work of the Ministry of Interior of the Republika Srpska, will apply for the call.

According to the Law on SIPA, this agency operates on a professional basis and does not represent, protect, or undermine the interests of any political party, registered organization or association, nor any constituent or other people in BiH. This is also stated in the GRECO report published in March 2023. However, for Ćulum, the Law on SIPA apparently does not apply.

He attended a meeting organized by SNSD cadre Staša Košarac at which it was requested that "Serb cadres" withdraw from BiH institutions when requested to do so by the Government of the Republika Srpska.

Although the Independent Board creates a ranking list that it submits to the Minister of Security, the proposal of names from the list that the Minister of Security decides on comes before the BiH Council of Ministers.