NUB BiH has not received the promised funds from Nikšić, BiH Council of Ministers needs to approve FBiH Government's appointment of management structures

(Patria) - The BiH Council of Ministers' session tomorrow, according to the published agenda, will not include the proposal from the BiH Ministry of Civil Affairs for the Council of Ministers to approve the Government of the Federation of BiH to appoint management structures at the National and University Library of BiH for a period of up to 12 months, after the institution was left without a director at the beginning of September when he retired. There is neither a management nor a supervisory board, they do not have regular salaries, nor do they have management structures that the state of BiH needs to appoint. They do not have regular salaries either, and only recently received back pay for May and June.

Although they received a promise in August from the FBiH Government and Prime Minister Nermin Nikšić that emergency funds would be allocated to finance the institution's operations until the end of this year and for the entire next year, these funds have not reached the NUB's account.

“The only funds we received at the beginning of the year were from the Canton of Sarajevo, specifically the Ministry of Science and Higher Education. We received 220,000 KM, which was enough for two salaries. Those were our only funds received until our closure on the 26th, the day the Vijećnica was set on fire. We received information then that the KS Government had made a decision and paid 400,000 KM in emergency funds. This is not a budgetary item. These are emergency funds to save the National and University Library, and we thank them. After that, we had a meeting at the FBiH Government with Prime Minister Nermin Nikšić and Minister Jasna Duraković. The Prime Minister promised us that the FBiH Government would finance the operations of the National and University Library of BiH with emergency funds until the end of this year, and through transfers to lower levels of government, co-finance the operations of the National and University Library of BiH through the KS. A month has passed since the promise, and we still have not received these funds from the FBiH Government. I take this opportunity to once again call on the FBiH Government and the Ministry of Finance to send these funds to our institution,” Aldin Huskić, President of the NUB BiH Employees' Council, told Forbes.

He adds that they have appealed and written to institutions several times to include them in the budget, as they are not budget users and are financed through grants via projects. They do not have secured funds, which are reduced every year.

“The only money we received this year is that 220,000 KM, not counting these emergency funds. The big problem is that we don't have management structures. We can say that the institution legally does not exist because we have no leadership. We have no director, nor a management or supervisory board. We have a promise from the BiH Minister of Civil Affairs, Dubravka Bošnjak, that this issue should soon be on the agenda of the BiH Council of Ministers, but we saw that we are not on the planned agenda for Tuesday's session. We sent an inquiry to see what is happening, but there is no concrete answer yet. The BiH Ministry of Civil Affairs states that it is not competent in this matter, because the culture sector belongs to the entities according to the Dayton Peace Agreement. When we approach the FBiH Government, they say you are a state institution, so we are now in a legal vacuum where it is not known at all who is responsible for these institutions. I mean us specifically and the other six cultural institutions of significance for BiH.”

Today, there are 37 employees at NUB BiH, and due to the difficult situation, several employees have resigned.

“What is important to mention is that according to the employment systematization, the library should have 110 employees. Many of us are doing three jobs in this institution, and it is only a matter of time before we close down again, because every day we have problems due to the lack of regulation of management structures. We can give an example of a colleague who gave birth a few days ago and cannot get the papers for her maternity allowance because there is no authorized person to sign her maternity allowance. We have a colleague who is supposed to retire, but is trapped here because she cannot get a Decision on the termination of employment. We have a problem with the internet provider whose contract has expired, and it is only a matter of time before they disconnect our internet. When they disconnect our internet, our work will stop, Cobis and book processing, user services, and everything.”