Instead of resolving the debt payment to young people, Premier Uk recycles statements about taxing vacant properties in Sarajevo

Written by: Amra Vrabac

These days, the Premier of Sarajevo Canton, Nihad Uk, has started recycling earlier statements on his social media profiles, as part of a communication strategy for which he hired a special expert at his cabinet, and republishing them with new photos. It would be a shame for the new photos to go to waste.

Thus, on Monday, September 9, he posted on his Facebook page his own statement, which he had given to Klix a month earlier (on August 9, with the same typographical error still present in that interview), concerning the taxation of vacant apartments. So, the Premier of Sarajevo Canton wants to tell us that the working group has still not completed the task for which it was hired several weeks ago, and which was supposed to finish the job it was assigned by today, as he had announced.

Instead, Uk decided to repeat the statement, presumably to make it seem like they are now doing something concrete. Fortunately, the memory of some of us is much better than Uk thinks.

And when it comes to additional taxation of citizens of Sarajevo Canton and property owners, the Premier of Sarajevo Canton should first resolve the issue of debt for subsidies to young people under the public call from 2023 for the purchase of their first property.

The parliamentary conclusion from June this year is that additional funds should be paid to them from the budget rebalance so that this subsidy would ultimately amount to 10,000 KM. We remind you that 1,142 young people qualified for 4,816 KM, which is the smallest subsidy paid under this project since its implementation.

Although he himself belongs to the younger generation, Premier Uk, in the same interview, called those young people who expressed dissatisfaction and organized protests a "handful of loud ones" who are orchestrating a campaign.

The Government of Sarajevo Canton and Premier Uk claimed they had no additional money to pay the subsidies, and at the protests they were joined by some parliamentary representatives and the President of the People and Justice party, Elmedin Konaković. However, even his appeal was not heeded by the Government of Sarajevo Canton, and the young people were paid reduced subsidies in January.

It should be recalled that representatives of Our Party abstained from voting on the conclusion to pay additional funds to young people, and Uk and the relevant minister Bojan Bošnjak come from the same party.

According to information from Patria, there are no indications that a rebalance of the Sarajevo Canton Budget is being prepared, nor are there any scheduled sessions of the Sarajevo Canton Assembly. The last session was held on July 9. The election campaign has taken its toll, and it is difficult to expect representatives to return to their seats before October, while young people are left to think carefully about the promises of those who ultimately deceived them and forced them to take to the streets to demand what was promised to them.