State Agency Police Officers Await Correction of Injustice: Law Without Amendment in Second Reading

The Proposal for the Law on Amendments to the Law on Salaries and Allowances in BiH Institutions was adopted in the first reading, and at the next session of the House of Representatives of the BiH Parliamentary Assembly, this law will be in its second reading before the deputies on March 7, Patria reports.

One amendment was proposed by MP Mirsad Isaković, but the competent commission rejected it. This law has been in procedure for a long time, and due to the postponement of the last session of the House of Representatives of the BiH Parliamentary Assembly, police officers in state agencies will have to wait even longer for the correction of injustice.

The aim of this law is to equalize the coefficients for police officers with secondary education with the coefficients of other employees in BiH institutions with this level of education. Namely, police officers in state security agencies have the lowest salaries, even lower than some in cantonal Ministries of Interior.

Incidentally, according to the current Law in BiH institutions, employees with secondary education have a coefficient of 1.40 to 1.60, while a police officer has 1.29! In practice, this means that even a secretary in some institution has a higher salary than a state-level police officer!?

- Given the complexity, stress, and danger of police work, the Union of Police Bodies in BiH proposes an amendment to Article 18 of the Law on Salaries and Allowances in BiH Institutions, in a way that for police officers from the rank of police officer to the rank of senior sergeant, coefficients are determined - police officer 1.40, senior police officer 1.55, sergeant 1.70, senior sergeant 1.90, etc. – states the proposal.

We remind you, the increase in salaries for police officers of the DKPT, SIPA, and GP to bring them in line with members of the FUP, as well as the MUP of Sarajevo Canton, was promised in June 2016 by Denis Zvizdić, Chairman of the Council of Ministers of BiH, and Dragan Mektić, Minister of Security of BiH. From the announced commitment to increase salaries for police officers at the state level, only insufficient effort and disappointment among members of the DKPT, SIPA, and GP remained.

At that time, the Council of Ministers of BiH on August 18 adopted decisions on the amount of the base for calculating salaries for employees in institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina and on the amount of vacation pay in institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina for 2017.

The amount of the base for calculating salaries was set at 475.69 BAM, and vacation pay at 300.00 BAM, meaning they remain at the 2016 level, in accordance with the policy of the Council of Ministers of BiH on limiting public spending on salaries and allowances for employees in BiH institutions.

In BiH, the highest paid are police officers, inspectors, and the director of the Federal Police Administration, whose earnings range from 1,100 BAM, as received by police officers, to over 4,000 BAM, as received by the director and certain inspectors. The difference in earnings is also present in the cantons, where salaries range between 700 and 1,200 BAM, while some commissioners, such as the one in the Una-Sana Canton, receive up to 3,600 BAM.