Government of ZDC gives consent to new collective agreement for employees of the Ministry of Interior, additional funds for agricultural incentives

(Patria) - The Government of the Zenica-Doboj Canton at its today's session gave consent to Prime Minister Nezir Pivić to sign a new collective agreement for employees of the Ministry of Interior of ZDC, which will be signed later today.

As Prime Minister Pivić pointed out, the previous collective agreement for the police has expired, and the new one will be valid for three years.

-The new collective agreement, among other things, provides for an increase in pay for night work from 30 to 35 percent, for work on weekly rest days from 20 to 30 percent, and passive standby duty from 10 to 20 KM. Of course, we will proceed with amendments to the Law on Salaries, where we will provide for some additional rights for members of the ZDC Ministry of Interior - announced Prime Minister Pivić.

With the new collective agreement and amendments to the law, members of the ZDC Ministry of Interior will be granted the right to an increase in annual leave from a maximum of 30 to 36 working days, while the minimum number of annual leave days remains 20 working days.

The police, like other budget users, also received a 10 percent salary increase on January 1 this year.

At today's session, the Government also adopted the Program for the Use of ZDC Budget Funds for Agricultural Incentives, which amounts to 6,000,000 KM.

-In the planned budget rebalance, we plan to allocate additional funds for agricultural incentive programs, and this will happen within the next month. So, in addition to these six million KM already provided for in the Spending Program, we plan additional funds for agricultural incentives - announced the Prime Minister of ZDC.

Within the Ministry for Veterans' Affairs, he added, the Information on the Implementation of the Housing Project for Veterans and Their Family Members in 2024 was adopted.

-A total of about 934,000 KM was spent for these purposes. Today, we also made individual decisions to resolve housing issues and cover treatment costs for demobilized veterans and their family members - said Pivić.

The Information on Forest Thefts for 2024 was also adopted, which states that forest thefts last year were 20 percent lower than the year before, but, added Pivić, the number of forest thefts is still alarmingly high. This implies, he emphasized, that special attention should be paid in the coming period to preventing this type of criminal offense or misdemeanor.

-We also adopted the Proposal for Amendments to the Law on Inspections of ZDC. The essence of the amendment concerns a new type of inspection. This is the food inspection. In order to protect the public interest, we are making certain steps to protect the public interest, i.e., the health and lives of people in the ZDC area, through additional measures and additional inspections.

We also had Information on the Achieved State in the Areas of Social Protection, Protection of Civilian Victims of War, and Protection of Families with Children in 2024. We noted that benefits were paid regularly.

What is the largest amount in that scope is the maternity benefit, which was granted to 1,126 mothers, which is 46 fewer mothers compared to a year earlier - said Pivić.

Cash assistance to mothers who are not employed was paid last year to 124 more women, while women who are permanently employed and who qualify for this assistance were 46 fewer compared to 2023.