OLD PROBLEMS Is anyone concerned about state police: Tegeltija delays base salary and budget due to Republika Srpska, supported by Višković!

By: A. Čorbo-Zećo

---

The legislative branch of government is trying to find a way to separate salary calculations for employees in institutions from the salary calculations for appointed and elected officials, and they are working at a snail's pace!
In doing so, they are primarily forgetting about the difficult financial solvency, first and foremost, of employees in state police agencies (SIPA, GP, DKPT), and it is still uncertain whether the draft Budget will be sent for further procedure with the proposed base salary of 630.00 KM under urgent procedure.

Namely, according to Patria's findings, Zoran Tegeltija, Minister of Finance of BiH and former Chairman of the Council of Ministers, is requesting that the base salary remain 535 KM, because an increase, according to him, 'costs too much money'. And it is not, of course, Bosnia and Herzegovina that is a problem for Tegeltija, but the fact that in that case, 'too much is drawn from the entity of Republika Srpska'.

He is preventing salary increases with these demands, while significant salary increases have been proposed in the entities.

As they say, killing two birds with one stone. Tegeltija is not worried about the outflow of personnel from the State Investigation and Protection Agency, the Border Police, the Directorate for Coordination of Police Bodies, because SNSD does not want strong state institutions!?

When it comes to police officers' salaries, they are lower compared to all police officers at lower levels of government, on average from 300 to 800 KM depending on rank. And precisely, the policy of SNSD is based on strengthening Republika Srpska and rendering meaningless everything that is state-owned, including the police agencies themselves.

Allocations from the Indirect Taxation Authority's single account for entity needs have increased by more than 30% since 2012, which has resulted in a drastic increase in salaries for employees in entity institutions, while salaries for employees in state-level police institutions have stagnated for the past ten years, and before that, they were reduced by about 7%.

"Due to this situation, we have recently witnessed an outflow of personnel from state-level police agencies, which directly affects security and the quality of work performance," the unions appeal.

But who cares? The new government is playing by the rules of Dodik and Čović, while they persistently promise us prosperity and a better future without corruption from TV screens. 

Police officers at the state level have already been forced to point out the absurdities of the system through peaceful protests, as well as their significant subordination in salary amounts compared to their colleagues from the entities. It seems that now they will again have the opportunity for salaries of police officers in Republika Srpska and FBiH to rise, while theirs stagnate!?

The fact that officials from Republika Srpska have aligned views is evidenced by the statement of Radovan Višković, Prime Minister of Republika Srpska, who, speaking about the session of the Fiscal Council, said that the previous Minister of Finance of BiH had some requests that at one point amounted to an increase of 200 million.

"We cannot agree to that for the simple reason that Republika Srpska has to allocate one-third of that budget, so such an increase is not justified. We will discuss this topic on Thursday," Višković said, assessing that "if there are requests that are not realistic and not in the interest of Republika Srpska," he cannot support them.

Otherwise, this morning, three representative unions of employees in the institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina sent a letter to the Chairperson and all ministers of the Council of Ministers, requesting, in view of the difficult financial situation caused by inflation and constant price increases, and based on information about the increase in income of employees in lower levels of government, the urgent adoption of the Proposal of the Decision on the amount of the base salary for 2023 in the amount of 630.00 KM, proposed by the Ministry of Finance and Treasury of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the adoption of the draft budget for 2023 so that it can begin the adoption procedure as soon as possible.