Smajić lectures Forto: By serving the interests of Serbia and Croatia, you are endangering the sovereignty of airspace and the security of BiH!

(Patria) - Delegate of the Party for Bosnia and Herzegovina in the House of Peoples of the Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina (PSBiH) Džemal Smajić expressed dissatisfaction with the written response he received from the Minister of Transport and Communications of BiH, Edin Forto. At a previous session, Smajić had asked for clarification on the measures and activities undertaken to prevent the primary radar in Sarajevo from being withdrawn from operational use and to enable the functioning of the primary and secondary radar located at Sarajevo International Airport, thereby protecting the sovereignty of Bosnia and Herzegovina's airspace.

"I am surprised by the extensive response from 'experts' in this field, which the minister forwarded to me, obviously not paying attention that the arguments presented in the response are directed against his credibility. It is evident that the minister has not taken any measures or activities to prevent the withdrawal of the primary radar from use.

This confirms the fact that Minister Forto is not implementing policies in the field of civil aviation in accordance with the law, nor does he have a vision for the development of air traffic control and civil aviation. Instead, he is unfortunately serving as a conduit for the coordinated activities aimed at undermining BiH's sovereignty in the airspace, carried out by the Director of the Air Navigation Services Agency of BiH, Davorin Primorac, and the Director of the Civil Aviation Directorate, Čedomir Šušnjar. Therefore, it is not surprising that even after 28 years, we do not control our sky and thus do not achieve our full sovereignty in the airspace," said the SBiH delegate at today's session of the House of Peoples of the PSBiH.

In his explanation, Smajić also highlighted several important points, indicating the endangered security of BiH.

"Out of the five radars that control air traffic over BiH, two are from Croatia, for which BiH pays 470,000 KM annually, and one image comes from the radar system of the Republic of Serbia. By simple calculation, in 10 years, around 5 million KM will be paid for renting radar equipment to Croatia, which is significantly more than the monetary value of one new secondary radar. Bosnia and Herzegovina has three radars, one of which is on Jahorina and is often out of order, and two are in Sarajevo, one of which is deactivated.

The second, functional radar is planned to be moved to Bukovik above Sarajevo, which is a very suspicious move. Why is the minister allowing this?" asked Smajić, adding that for major airports, a radar image from two secondary radars and one primary radar is necessary to provide a safe air traffic control service, as is the case in the region.

He also reminded that since the formation of the Air Navigation Services Agency of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BHANSA), over 500 million KM has been spent on its functioning.

"Why has the BiH radar system not been renewed, but instead has been degraded to absolute dysfunctionality, while the budgets of neighboring countries have been filled for the use of their equipment. All of this points to a major scandal where neighboring countries are using Minister Forto for their own interests, while the uninformed minister is undermining the security of BiH," Smajić stated.