Budgetary Funds Misspent: What Could RS Municipalities Have Done With the Cost of the Referendum?

One of the questions regarding the referendum in RS, pushed to the background from the very beginning given the entire situation surrounding it, is the issue of its financing in an entity that has long been sinking into increasing debt, reports the Patria News Agency.

The "cheap" referendum was particularly expensive when viewed from the local level – many mayors could boast much better results in their past mandate if they had the money spent on the referendum at their disposal.

When asked about the costs of holding the referendum on January 9th as the Day of Republika Srpska, the President of the National Assembly of RS, Nedeljko Čubrilović, stated that the costs of the announced referendum had already been estimated when the decision to hold it was made. The media at the time reported that the costs were estimated at three million marks, although no one cited Čubrilović as the source of this information.

Four days later, Siniša Karan, president of the Referendum Commission, announced that the referendum would not only be twice as cheap as the amount stated in the media, but also "the cheapest referendum in this region":

I personally think this is a framework that will not be exceeded, it might only be less, and at this moment it is 1,425,300 KM. This will be the cheapest process of this kind in this region. Siniša Karan, 16.08.2016.

At the beginning of September, Republika Srpska offered bonds and treasury bills worth 55 million KM on the Banja Luka Stock Exchange. New borrowing was undertaken to pay off budgetary obligations, for which the entity has long lacked funds. One million, or even three million marks, may seem insignificant compared to 55 million, just as the borrowing of 55 million itself seems like a drop in the ocean of Republika Srpska's existing debt, which exceeded 5 billion marks last year.

For most local communities, however, the amount of 1.5 or 3 million marks represents significant money that would be invaluable in solving the problems faced by citizens in municipalities and cities, writes Istinomjer.