Srna-Bajramović: Public companies as party ATMs

SARAJEVO, (Patria) - The Sarajevo Canton Assembly did not adopt the Report on the operations of the ZOI '84 company for 2016. Eight representatives voted in favor, 13 voted against, and six representatives abstained. 

Other reports on the operations of cantonal public companies: "Veterinary Station", "Agricultural Estate Butmir", "Sarajevo – Forests", and the "Skenderija" Center were adopted during the session of the Cantonal Assembly.

Following the non-adoption of the report for ZOI '84, a change in the company's management should follow.

Cantonal Prime Minister Elmedin Konaković stated during the session on Wednesday that, from his position as prime minister, he will not protect "those people who do not deserve it, that is, those who are not doing a good job."

"This company has been financed from the KS budget ten times more than all other companies combined. The Veterinary Station and the Skenderija Center did not have anywhere near the budget support that ZOI '84 had. We pay their water debts, give them money for salaries, procured everything related to the six-seater, four-seater, artificial snowmaking... everything that this company was supposed to pay for from its own operations," said Konaković.

The opposition does not dispute that most public companies operate poorly and that their urgent restructuring is needed, but, they add, such a thing must be done according to professional principles, and not for political score-settling.

SDP representative in the Sarajevo Canton Assembly Segmedina Srna-Bajramović believes that the very fact that the operations of public companies in 2016 are being discussed two years later "insults the intelligence of every serious person," and that this sufficiently indicates that it is a matter of a showdown within SDA factions.

"The purpose of reviewing /the operations of public companies in KS/ in our case was obviously and exclusively political, in the sense of a showdown between factions within the SDA," says Srna-Bajramović in a comment for the Patria agency.

"Furthermore, the essence is that the showdown of SDA factions in the Sarajevo Canton Assembly through these reports violates all legally defined procedures, and in terms of deadlines, makes the entire process completely meaningless. Discussing something from 2016 in 2018 is an insult to the intelligence of every serious person," emphasizes Srna-Bajramović, adding that "we are all witnessing the truth that the management of public companies in the Sarajevo Canton is not in the Assembly nor in the Government, but in political parties. 

"Primarily, I mean the SDA," says this representative, who is one of the more active ones in the Sarajevo Canton Assembly in the term starting from 2014.

She adds that the consequence of the irresponsible system is paid mostly by the citizens, "while public companies, as party ATMs, continue the continuity of an unstoppable wrong path."