Concrete cooperation with the IMF impossible without new government and budget adoption

(Patria) - Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of BiH and Minister of Finance and Treasury Vjekoslav Bevanda received the Head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Mission for BiH Martin Petri today, with whom he discussed activities related to the adoption of the budget for this and next year.

Minister Bevanda emphasized that the current political situation in BiH confirms that the budget is not the focus of interest, as this extremely important document has not been adopted even for this year, although the draft budget for next year should have been completed by now. 

“In every country, the budget is the fundamental financial document and its adoption is a serious process. Here we have a situation where the BiH Fiscal Council, which must adopt the Global Fiscal Framework, has not met, and the budget request for 2020 has not yet been submitted to us by the BiH Presidency. Clearly, only the Ministry of Finance and Treasury of BiH is dealing with the budget, which is why we urged the BiH Fiscal Council to meet,” emphasized Minister Bevanda. 

It was stated at the meeting that temporary financing is in effect and that this cannot be a step towards a new arrangement with the IMF or a continuation of the existing one, as the adoption of the budget and the implementation of reforms undertaken based on the Letter of Intent signed by BiH authorities are expected.

It was emphasized that the formation and functioning of the government remains a priority issue in BiH, but also a prerequisite for continuing the implementation of reforms planned through the arrangement with the IMF and other financial institutions with which BiH has credit agreements for which the ratification procedure in the BiH parliamentary assembly has not been completed. The interlocutors agreed that discussions on future cooperation will be much more concrete after the process of forming the government in BiH is completed, so that new programs can be decided upon at full capacity.

So far, within the extended arrangement between BiH and the IMF, two tranches of about 150 million KM per tranche have been paid into the entity accounts, and the total value of the credit program, which was stopped in June 2018, is around 1.1 billion KM. In addition to Minister Bevanda's associates, the meeting was also attended by the IMF Resident Representative in BiH Andrew Jewel.