RS Authorities Cover Up Bobar Bank Affair

Dobrila Drinić, Radmila Stojnić, Srđan Amidžić and Željka Stojičić, members of the Finance and Budget Committee of the National Assembly of RS, voted yesterday against the proposal of Transparency International BiH to summon Slavica Injac, Director of the Banking Agency of RS, for a public hearing before the parliamentary committee regarding the "Bobar Banka" affair, reports the Patria News Agency.

TI BiH states that this proposal was rejected with four votes against and five votes in favour, but two members of the Committee were absent from the session, thus the required majority of six members was not achieved.

The Special Prosecutor's Office of RS simultaneously informed TI BiH that there are no grounds for suspicion of organized crime in the Bobar Banka case, and that the criminal offenses that may have been committed, by which unknown persons illegally appropriated 9,968,349.90 KM from the bank's vault, and committed a number of other criminal offenses, do not fall under their jurisdiction because they "could not be classified as the most serious criminal offenses against the economy and payment transactions and against official duty, where criminal prosecution is of particular importance for Republika Srpska".

- Chief Special Prosecutor Miodrag Bajić has thus demonstrated a worrying avoidance of responsibility by undermining the very purpose of the institution he heads - it is stated in the TI BiH press release.

By the inaction of the Special Prosecutor's Office of RS and the refusal of MPs from the ruling coalition to investigate the work of Slavica Injac and the Banking Agency of RS, the institutions of Republika Srpska have, as stated, put a stop to the Bobar Banka affair.

- By rejecting the named members of the NSRS Finance and Budget Committee to hear Slavica Injac, it has been established that there is no political will of the current ruling majority in Republika Srpska to deal with organized crime, while the response of the Special Prosecutor's Office of RS shows that the lack of political will is directly felt in the work of judicial institutions. In this way, despite the criminal charges filed by the Banking Agency itself regarding the disappearance of money from the bank's vault, as well as numerous criminal charges filed by Bobar Bank employees and other citizens, currently none of the institutions are dealing with this case, which confirms suspicions that this is a case of systemic and institutional cover-up of organized crime - the statement reads.

TI BiH calls on the Finance and Budget Committee to reconsider, with its full composition, the initiative for a public hearing of the Director of the Banking Agency of RS and to allow, at least in this way, through the control role of the legislative body, to establish responsibility for the bank's collapse and a series of abuses that have caused significant losses to public institutions whose funds were entrusted to Bobar Bank.