State Agencies Lack 1,252 Police Officers: SIPA and BiH Border Police Failed to Submit National Structure of Employees and Managers

By Amra Vrabac

At the end of 2024, three state police agencies were short of 1,252 police officers.

These are official data from the State Investigation and Protection Agency (SIPA) where approximately 105 police officers are missing, 409 in the Directorate for Coordination of Police Bodies, and the largest number for years is in the Border Police of BiH, where as many as 738 police officers are missing. Darko Ćulum has been the head of SIPA since 2020, his term expired in July 2024, the director of the BiH Border Police is Mirko Kuprešaković, and the director of the Directorate for Coordination of Police Bodies is Enes Karić.

At the end of 2024, the Minister of Security of BiH, Nenad Nešić, was arrested, and by the decision of the Collegium of the Council of Ministers of BiH, Ivica Bošnjak will perform the duties of the minister. Although the plan for admitting cadets to police agencies was adopted a few months ago, the missing personnel will not be filled even in the next five years with the current dynamics. The Border Police of BiH always admits the largest number of cadets, but the application procedure and training of personnel take more than a year, and at the same time, police officers are leaving police agencies, mostly due to meeting retirement conditions. Increasing the capacity of training agencies, a larger number of job openings, and a possible amendment to the law that would extend the working lives of police officers by a few years remain the task of the Council of Ministers of BiH.

We also asked these three agencies about the number of police officers who will be eligible for retirement in 2025, so in SIPA there will be 20 fewer police officers, in the BiH Border Police 125 police officers meet the conditions, and in the Directorate for Coordination of Police Bodies 80. With the 1,252 police officers who are already missing, this number will increase to 1,477 police officers.

According to the data provided to Patria by these three police agencies, the Border Police of BiH has the largest number of employees with 1,887, followed by the Directorate for Coordination of Police Bodies with 818, and SIPA with 743 employees.

In the SIPA work report for 2023, with 735 employees, the occupancy rate was 77 percent compared to the number of systematized positions, of which 529 were police officers or 79% of occupied positions.

Although we requested data on the national structure of employees in these three agencies, only the Directorate for Coordination of Police Bodies provided us with the data. Out of 818 employees, 438 are Bosniaks, 253 Serbs, 121 Croats, and 6 others.

The national structure in SIPA in mid-2024, with 739 employees, looked like this: 307 Serbs, 304 Bosniaks, 128 Croats. This data was previously published.

Although the national structure should reflect the national structure of the BiH population according to the 1991 census, as this census applies to state police agencies, it is clear that a larger number of Bosniaks are missing in SIPA.

The situation is even more dire when it comes to management positions, but neither the BiH Border Police nor SIPA provided the national structure of management staff, while the BiH Border Police did not state the number of management positions at all. Only the Directorate for Coordination of Police Bodies provided data, where there are seven management positions, of which 3 are Bosniaks (1 management position by authorization), two Serbs, and two Croats (one management position by authorization).

SIPA stated for Patria that the number of management positions is 15 (Agency Director, Advisor, and heads of basic organizational units) and 37 police officers in management positions within internal organizational units, while four civil servants are in management positions of basic organizational units and seven employees are in positions of heads of internal organizational units.

Patria previously reported that there are fewer Bosniaks among these positions than there should be, while the Border Police of BiH is hiding this data.