Who is the future director of the RB: A man followed by scandals will manage 100 million KM of state money

Salko Selman, vice-president of the Party of Democratic Action (SDA) is soon to become the director of the Development Bank of the Federation of BiH, and to the doors of this important institution in the country, which manages nearly 100 million KM, he has been accompanied by a multitude of scandals, controversies and suspicious dealings, writes the Bosnian news agency Patria (NAP).

The graduated economist, former manager of a local mine in Bila and former prime minister of the Central Bosnia Canton, is linked to numerous financial malversations, blackmail, nepotism, tax evasion, abuse of office, bid-rigging...

Even the very appointment of Selman as the head of the Development Bank of FBiH is, lawyers are clear, contrary to the law, because Selman was appointed to this position at a time when he holds at least five political functions, which is in direct contradiction with Article 18 of the Law on the Development Bank of FBiH, writes NAP.

In September this year, the media published a facsimile of a document, in which the commission for compensation for damage caused by the May floods in the country awarded Selman 37,000 KM as compensation, even though the damage to his property caused by the overflowing of the Lašva River in Travnik amounted to barely 2,000 KM.

The daily Avaz reported that Selman, vice-president of the SDA and the list holder of that party for the House of Representatives of the Parliament of FBiH in the October elections, would receive 37,000 KM from donations for the remediation of damage caused in flooded areas.

Member of the Association „Whistleblowers“ in SBK, Besim Ajanović, explained this financial malversation by Selman with the words:

 - Selman received a permit to build a mini hydroelectric plant near Travnik. His workers are extracting slag and preparing the terrain to facilitate his construction. He physically drags that slag and presents it as if the water caused the damage. In fact, it is about the state paying him for the arrangement of the space for the mini plant – said Ajanović.

Selman was also accused by Besim Ajanović, one of the founders of the SDA in the Central Bosnia Canton. He revealed a large number of political-criminal events in Travnik, Donji Vakuf, and other places in SBK.

- Until I came to Travnik to the position of secretary of the Cantonal Board of SDA SBK, I was at the end of my second year of studying Information Technology in Mostar – said Ajanović for the portal „BH magazine“

- But, when I refused to finish the faculty as Selman demanded from me (by bribing professors, editor's note), Selman did not allow me to go to exams, so I had to stop my education. I preferred to remain an honorable high school graduate with a face rather than an intellectual without one.

A large number of Selman's malversations are also linked to agricultural and other incentives in the Central Bosnia Canton.

However, Selman is not only followed by criminal activities, which he manages to cover up thanks to political positions and connections in the prosecutor's offices. Statistical data from entity and state agencies, which Selman, despite strong ties in politics, could not conceal, also do not work in his favor.

Thus, the Central Bosnia Canton, at the head of which Selman was for two terms from 2002, is one of the poorest cantons in the Federation. 

In 2013, the average monthly net salary paid in FBiH was 835 KM, but in the Central Bosnia Canton, which Selman managed as prime minister from 2002, but also now manages as the head of the local SDA branch, it was far below that average, amounting to only 698 KM, writes NAP.