STRIKES HAVE BEGUN Bevanda at a crossroads: Less and less time to adopt the state budget

By: A. Vrabac

The Ministry of Finance and Treasury of BiH, headed by Vjekoslav Bevanda (HDZ BiH), is the next step in preparing the budget of BiH institutions for 2022.

Bevanda has repeatedly stated for months that he cannot prepare the budget until the Global Fiscal Framework 2022-2024 is adopted, which the Fiscal Council finally did on March 30.

“By adopting the Global Framework for Fiscal Balance and Policies in BiH, the prerequisites have been created to create and propose the budget of BiH institutions for this year. The Fiscal Council determined in this document that the budget framework for BiH institutions for 2022 will be increased by 46.5 million KM and will amount to 1,073,600,000 KM. The allocation of indirect tax revenues for the BiH level will be 865,500,000 KM, and the rest are own revenues,” said Minister Bevanda.

The procedure stipulates that the Ministry of Finance and Treasury prepares the budget and submits it to the Council of Ministers, and later to the constitutional proposer, the Presidency of BiH, which sends this document into parliamentary procedure.

“The Ministry of Finance and Treasury of BiH will continue to perform its duties in accordance with the Constitution and laws and will not be part of politicking and daily political turmoil. In the time ahead, we will offer the best possible document for financing BiH institutions and implementing reforms,” concluded Minister Bevanda.

Given that it is an election year and the General Elections are expected to be called at the beginning of May, and financial resources must be secured no later than 15 days after the elections are called, it is clear that there is not much time left to adopt the Budget.

Considering that the Council of Ministers of BiH adopted the base for calculating salaries in BiH institutions at 535 KM at last week's session, there will be no salary calculations based on the new base without an adopted budget.

As of today, employees of the Indirect Taxation Authority of BiH, which collects record amounts of indirect taxes, are also on strike, and employee salaries have not increased for years, while they are increasing at the entity and Brčko District levels.

The ITA stated that an increase in the base means nothing to them without an adopted budget. Police officers of state police agencies are in the same situation, whose salaries are lower than those of their colleagues in entity and cantonal ministries of interior.