Neighbouring IT Companies Take Over BiH Market: Hundreds of Millions of KM End Up in Belgrade and Zagreb Annually

It is estimated that the information technology (IT) market in Bosnia and Herzegovina is worth more than 300 million KM annually, mostly money from BiH taxpayers, which ends up in the accounts of foreign companies, most often in Zagreb and Belgrade, reveals the BiH news agency Patria.

Information technology involves the development or procurement, installation, and maintenance of computer software for companies. One IT expert in BiH, who spoke on condition of anonymity, explains to Patria that the buyers of such software solutions are mostly public Bosnian-Herzegovinian companies. Smaller ones can hardly afford such a thing.

For example, he recalls, the University Clinical Center Sarajevo alone paid more than 1,000,000 KM for the establishment of the SAP information system, the crash of which shortly thereafter blocked the entire operation of the UKCS. Valuable data on the financial operations of the UKCS were reportedly lost.

The entire affair of extracting money from BiH taxpayers through the IT market has so far taken place in secrecy, without much public interest, because the affair was from the beginning covered by the cloak of "buy domestic."

- Foreign companies open sister companies in Bosnia and Herzegovina. They employ only a few workers from BiH. After that, under the guise of "buy domestic," they win million-euro tenders in public Bosnian-Herzegovinian companies or from budget users. Of course, the money does not stay in BiH, but goes to the accounts of parent companies, in most cases companies from Zagreb, and some from Belgrade - explains this source.

It is clear that the million-euro affair is taking place under the patronage of the leading political parties in the country.

Meanwhile, Bosnian-Herzegovinian IT companies get jobs in the much more demanding foreign market. It should not be forgotten that Nokia's maps, which a few years ago captivated the world marketing market, were created right in Sarajevo. By a domestic expert and in a domestic company.

Patria, with this introductory story, opens a series of articles on how foreign companies extract millions of KM from the budget every year, money that could stay in Bosnia and Herzegovina. We reveal the names of the companies from which the most money has been extracted so far. What do "domestic traitors" get as a reward for awarding jobs to foreign companies...