No increase in excise duties: Bevanda and Milićević blocked the arrangement with the IMF

Although it was expected that the Excise Law would be before the House of Representatives of the BiH Parliament as early as December 14, such expectations were extinguished today, after the members of the UIO Management Board blocked the adoption of the excise law at the session and thus blocked the entire process of adopting the law as one of the prior measures that BiH committed to under the additional letter of intent to the IMF, Patria reports.

Vjekoslav Bevanda, Chairman of the UIO Management Board, Jelka Milićević, Minister of Finance of the FBiH, and Miodrag Kudić, an expert from the RS, were against this proposal.

Zoran Tegeltija, Minister of Finance of the RS, voted for the law, i.e., the increase in excise duties on fuel, as did Ismet Suljendić, an expert of the Council of Ministers of BiH.

Muhamed Kozadra, the third expert, was not present at the session, as the House of Peoples of the FBiH Parliament is in session today.

- The obligation towards the IMF is the adoption of the excise law relating to oil and petroleum products, and I convened the session. At the beginning of the session, there was an objection from the Federation of BiH regarding the method of revenue distribution and a request that revenues be distributed in accordance with the distribution of total revenues, and not as defined by the 2009 regulation, with the argument that the FBiH pays more based on fuel - said Vjekoslav Bevanda to reporters after the session of the UIO BiH Management Board in Mostar. 

This discussion was initiated by Jelka Milićević and supported by Bevanda, who, however, told the media that he would not "gossip about who voted against the law!"

He reiterated that there is no law, and that, as far as the UIO Management Board is concerned, the story is over, because he cannot persuade anyone to vote in favor. 

- The arrangement with the IMF is jeopardized, as are all other credit arrangements with the EBRD, the OPEC Fund, and the Kuwait Fund - Bevanda emphasized. 

He also added that he attended a political agreement at a high political level (meeting of coalition leaders) where everything was agreed upon, but in the implementation of that, there was a deviation.

Although many agreed that the distribution of revenue from tolls is not good, the conclusion is that, given the blockades, any law is better than none.