Subsidies of 4,816 KM Paid to Just Over 1,000 Applicants, Young People Continue Fight for Higher Amount

(Patria) - The Ministry of Finance of the Sarajevo Canton has paid subsidies for solving the housing issue of young people who exercised this right based on the Public Call of the Government of the Sarajevo Canton from 2023. The subsidy amounts to 4,816 KM.

Although the final list included 1,142 applicants, about 100 of them were not ready to submit a notarized statement that they would live in the Sarajevo Canton for the next five years, which was a new criterion compared to the one from earlier calls regarding three years of residence in the Sarajevo Canton before applying to the public call.

One of the young people who received 4,816 KM in his account, Adnan Lukač, confirmed to Patria that the young people's fight will not stop. They submitted a request to the protocol of the Sarajevo Canton Assembly to be allowed to address the first upcoming session of the Sarajevo Canton Assembly.

"We submitted the request, now we are waiting for a decision on whether it will be approved. The first upcoming session should be this month," Lukač told Patria.

Several hundred young people also held protests in Sarajevo, joined by politicians, unionists, family members, and citizens.

Although the head of the NiP, Elmedin Konaković, whose party is part of the government in Sarajevo, called on the Government of the Sarajevo Canton to pay young people an amount close to the promised 12,000 KM, that call remained without a response. After the government ignored that call, cantonal representative Elvis Vreto (NiP) submitted on January 19 a representative initiative requesting that these young people be enabled, in the next public call, a specially created request through which they would exercise the right to payment of the difference up to the amount determined by the Government of the Sarajevo Canton for 2024, if there is no possibility for another solution.

On the other hand, according to unofficial information, several ministers in the Government of the Sarajevo Canton could redistribute funds and secure money for paying the difference to young people.

This public call has been implemented for the last seven years, and the smallest paid amount was during the Covid-19 period in 2020 when 7,000 KM was paid per person. However, considering the rise in real estate prices, inflation, and the increase in overall living costs, young people expect that amount to be around 10,000 KM.

These young people have faced accusations from some politicians, precisely from NiP, that they are a "hyper-privileged caste" and that nothing should be given to them.

However, the public call of the Government of the Sarajevo Canton was not a social program or a social measure. It is an incentive program for young people that was supposed to encourage them to stay in the Sarajevo Canton, as well as their relocation to the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina.