SIPA Trade Union to BiH Authorities: Since the Budget Adoption, You Have Done Nothing to Rectify Injustice!

(Patria) - Edin Kahrimanović, president of the Trade Union of the State Investigation and Protection Agency (SIPA), sent an open letter to the BiH authorities.

"The budget of the institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with much fanfare and dust, was adopted at the end of last month, and with the mentioned budget, to remind you, you returned an amount of 60 KM to employees in the institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina and an amount of about 85 KM of basic salary to police officers, which you took from us back in 2009, while you increased your own income by about 500 KM, which is approximately the salary of one employee.

As the people say: 'Three days is enough for any wonder,' the dust has settled, and you have not taken any action to rectify that injustice from the adoption of the Budget until today, although you promised to do so in the discussion during the adoption of the Budget.

In relation to the foregoing, we remind you that the proposal to amend the Law on Salaries and Allowances in the Institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina is in procedure in the House of Peoples, which increases the coefficients for employees in the institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina up to coefficient 3 by 0.20 per coefficient, which essentially means an increase in salary for the most vulnerable categories of employees, soldiers, police officers up to the rank of senior inspector, civil servants up to the position of expert advisor linearly by an amount of about 107.00 KM, and we call on you to adopt it as soon as possible and restore at least a little trust in the people who work in the institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and to enable us to have somewhat normal earnings for our work.

Also, we call on the Chairperson and all ministers in the Council of Ministers to act in accordance with the Initiative on harmonizing the costs of transportation and warm meals for employees in the institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was adopted by the House of Representatives of the Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina at its session held on 27.06.2022, which tasked the Council of Ministers to harmonize the amount of compensation for commuting to and from work with the average increase in the price of fuel per liter in the last year within one month, and to increase the amount of compensation for meals during work from the current 8.00 KM to 12.00 KM for each day spent at work.

The adoption of the Budget did not solve the problems of commuting costs to and from work, given that our employees continue to spend money from their salaries to get to their workplace, which is why we hope and expect that the executive authorities will act according to the instructions of the legislative authorities and realize the mentioned initiative by the end of this month," the letter states.