Minister Kraljević signs agreements with prime ministers: 200 million KM in cantons' accounts tomorrow

(Patria) - Deputy Prime Minister of the Federation of BiH and Federal Minister of Finance Toni Kraljević signed agreements today in Sarajevo with ten cantonal prime ministers or authorized persons on the distribution of aid in the amount of 200 million KM.

- We are executing the provision of 200 million KM in transfers to the cantons, and as stated in the budget, 20 percent of these funds are for demographic purposes – said Minister Kraljević.

The Federal Minister expressed satisfaction that they managed to complete the distribution, and said that he knows how much it means to the cantons for structural reforms and numerous infrastructural projects.

- In this regard, the Federation of BiH is helping lower levels of government. When you look at the expenditure side of the budget of the Federation of BiH, you will see that in addition to these 200 million KM, we are also providing money for capital investments for cities and municipalities, as well as to ministries for crafts, entrepreneurship, tourism, capital and current investments – said Minister Kraljević.

Minister Kraljević stated that these 200 million KM will be in the accounts of the ten cantons tomorrow.

Prime Minister of Zenica-Doboj Canton Nezir Pivić thanked the Federal Minister of Finance Kraljević, as well as the entire Government of the Federation of BiH for the allocated funds.

- This year has been very difficult in terms of finances, and I am glad that the Ministry of Finance of the FBiH has found a way to transfer these significant funds to the cantons – emphasized Prime Minister Pivić.

He added that the cantonal budgets are very burdened in terms of certain constitutional and legal obligations, where they have about 70 to 80 percent of legal obligations related to employee salaries and social benefits.

- For this reason, it is very important that we have these funds, because most cantons have completed the period when we prepared budgets and rebalances, and saw that these funds were sorely missing – concluded Prime Minister Pivić.

Based on the criteria from this decision, the distribution of funds to the cantons is determined with individual amounts, namely for Una-Sana Canton 23,903,093.37 KM, for Posavina 7,601,971.13 KM, for Tuzla 38,928,152.34 KM, for Zenica-Doboj 31,878,226.40 KM, for Bosanska-Podrinje 4,152,192.62 KM, for Central Bosnia 22,278,273.29 KM, for Herzegovina-Neretva 19,419,727.11 KM, for West Herzegovina Canton 8,301,059.26 KM, and 36,178,423.18 KM for Canton Sarajevo, as well as 7,358,882.30 KM for Canton 10.