SDP BiH: Enough of SDA's hypocrisy, start working!

SARAJEVO, (Patria) - In times of crisis, SDP BiH is trying, as a responsible party, to contribute to solutions by avoiding any possible politicking. We have proposed through our health and economic councils a significant number of measures solely with the intention of helping governments at all levels to respond as well as possible together to the challenges of the health and economic crisis we are facing.

Unfortunately, for the sake of the citizens of this country, we are obliged to call on SDA to get serious and stop its hypocritical statements, and instead of constant announcements of moves, to realize that they are the government and have the full capacity and responsibility to plan and implement them.

SDA President Bakir Izetbegović has gone too far with his latest hypocritical statement, talking about salaries in the public sector. He is clearly kept in isolation from the truth and facts. Therefore, we want to remind the SDA president that it was precisely SDA and Prime Minister Fadil Novalić, upon coming to power in 2014, who increased the grant for political parties by 100 percent, which had previously been reduced when the Prime Minister of FBiH was Nermin Nikšić. His party, among the first decisions it made in 2015, reinstated privileges for politicians, such as costs for "separate living", which SDP had previously abolished.

SDA, with its coalition partners, increased salaries for politicians and the administration after the 2018 elections, and that increase alone cost the citizens of FBiH 17 million KM annually. SDA opposed and voted against excluding politicians from salary increases. We remind Bakir Izetbegović that the deputies of his party, namely the active "pensioners" like Adil Osmanović, blocked amendments to the law that would limit severance pay for politicians, which amounts to up to 30,000 KM.

Did his party not immediately, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, pay grants to political parties upon coming to power in the Sarajevo Canton, or will Izetbegović, following the usual pattern, accuse its coalition partners of doing so? Also, in the midst of the pandemic, the SDA Government of Zenica-Doboj Canton tried to pass a decision on paying grants to political parties.

Their mutual public surprises about the catastrophic distribution of money by the FBiH Government show that our system of government is in complete disarray, both vertically and horizontally, and that it is time for them to urgently consolidate in order to synchronize the actions of all levels of government to help the economy and workers. That is why we call on the SDA president to face the facts and abandon hypocrisy. How else can we interpret that the Government led by SDA offers "mild chamomile" in measures to protect citizens' health, workers' rights, jobs, and the economy, and then the SDA president comes out with populist measures. So why doesn't the Government propose those measures so we can vote on them in parliament?

They have our word that SDP BiH will continue to vote on principle and continue to pursue its policy regarding the salaries and privileges of politicians, because, unlike SDA, we in SDP confirm our positions with actions.