Party of BiH KS Council: Budget deficit is growing, utility prices are increasing, KS's real debt is being hidden

(Patria) - The Government of Sarajevo Canton is slowly but surely slowing down in fulfilling its financial obligations. The KS budget deficit is growing and increasingly affecting the regular settlement of obligations to budget users, the Cantonal Council of the Party of BiH announced.

"At the same time, models are being developed to increase utility prices, given that subsidizing these costs through the budget is becoming almost impossible.

Although the credit debt of Sarajevo Canton is growing and is close to almost 900 million KM, on the website of the Ministry of Finance in the "PUBLICATIONS AND BULLETINS" section, the last published document informing the public about the debt situation is "Sarajevo Canton Debt Management Strategy 2023-2025". According to this document, the debt as of 31.12.2022 amounted to 483.14 million KM.

After the last publication of the Strategy, the KS Ministry of Finance has never published strategies for the periods 2024-2026 and 2025-2027. There is no information on the ministry's website whether these documents have been adopted.

Article 28 of the Law on the Budget of the FBiH stipulates that the Cantonal Government is obliged to comply with Article 17 of the Law, which requires Strategies to be adopted for each budget year. There is no data on the Ministry of Finance's website whether this provision has been complied with, although the debt for this period has doubled and is now at the level of approx. 900 million KM.

The Debt Management Strategy is a mandatory document and its publication is mandatory, as has been evident in previous years. What was published before 2024 is becoming secret, so the logical question is why this document is becoming secret.

We are publicly posing three questions to the KS Government:

1. Is it true that the debt of Sarajevo Canton as of 31.12.2025 will amount to approx. 900 million KM (all loans, in repayment, in procedure, and planned by the end of the year)?
2. Is it true that the deficit of Sarajevo Canton as of 31.12.2025 will amount to approx. 200 million KM?
3. Is it true that Sarajevo Canton will take out loans by the end of the year to cover the budget deficit, thus reaching the legal maximum of 10% of the budget revenue?

The answers to these questions will provide an overview of the budget situation (debt and deficit), which is a legal obligation, as well as the obligation to publicly publish such documents. At the same time, we will get an answer as to why data is being hidden from the public, as well as quarterly budget execution, which was a regular practice before 2025," states Almir Bečarević, president of the Party of BiH KS Council.