FBiH Government: Among companies for urgent sale Bosnalijek, Energoinvest, FDS...

Fadil Novalić, Prime Minister of FBiH, said after the held session of the FBiH Government that the session passed without three ministers from DF, and took the opportunity to say that ministers are obliged to attend sessions as long as their employment status lasts, writes the Bosnian news agency Patria.

- Today, reform points and only necessary appointments prevailed because if we had not done them, we would have come into legal collision that those companies would not function. Thus, today the proposal of the work program of the FBiH Government for the 2015-2018 mandate was adopted. This does not have to go to the Parliament. We could have done it earlier, but we waited for the agenda, which we see will not go easily, so we adopted the program. Another important point is the reorganization of certain administrations for the purpose of more efficient and functional spending - Novalić pointed out.

The Prime Minister explained that out of a total of 140 institutions, 30 will be covered by measures of merging, abolishing some.

- Today we decided to merge and attach the first six to others. That is, first of all, the Institute for Agriculture. Thus, the Plant Protection Institute, the Federal Institute for Agro-pedology and the Federal Institute for Agriculture were merged. They will grow into an Institute and will have one administration - says Novalić.

The Federal Fund for Providing Assistance to Flood Victims was attached to the Federal Administration of Civil Protection.

- We know there were floods, but now the Fund can use the resources of the FUCZ. Then the Agency for Privatization, the Agency for Passive Balance and the Agency for Audit of Privatization will all be one agency. In the coming months, we will do additional analyses on exactly how many employees we need. This is the second measure, besides the moratorium on employment, that works on reducing public spending - Novalić pointed out.

A total of 52 companies are classified into three categories: strategic, companies with difficulties, and companies with minority shares, and they should go for fast privatization.

- Strategic companies include 21 firms, and these include power utilities, telecoms, Railways, and some defense industry factories that are not loss-makers, there are also airports and banks owned by FBiH, and these 21, according to the new regulation, are directly subject to the interest of the FBiH Government. These are strategic companies. In some of them, we will introduce technical assistance from the EBRD for restructuring, such as mines and Railways - Novalić pointed out.

There are 26 business entities with difficulties, and these are Agrokomerc, Binas, Tobacco Factory Mostar, Forests of Herceg-Bosna, Pretis, Vitezit... and a Directorate for companies with difficulties will be formed for them.

- The Directorate will take care of these companies with the aim of either restructuring them or liquidating them through bankruptcy. Those that go for privatization are the last category, and they include Aluminij, ArcelorMittal, Energoinvest, Bosnalijek, Energopetrol and Sarajevo Osiguranje, Tobacco Factory Sarajevo - Novalić noted.