Eight Million KM Spent on Accommodation for Military Personnel, Auditors Dissatisfied!

The Audit Office of the Institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina conducted a performance audit on the topic: „Accommodation of active military personnel in the Ministry of Defence of BiH“, writes the news agency Patria.

The aim of the audit was to analyse the efficiency of the Ministry of Defence of BiH in rationalising expenditure on accommodation for active military personnel serving in the Armed Forces of BiH.

- The audit findings indicate that around 8 million KM is allocated annually for the accommodation of active military personnel. The Ministry itself has determined that these costs are high and that the current method of accommodating active military personnel through individual rental of private apartments is not an economical solution. In its analyses, the Ministry states that significantly more economical solutions for accommodating active military personnel are possible, and some of them would enable a reduction of these annual expenditures by approximately 5.8 million KM - the audit states.

Regardless of the above, the Ministry's activities in finding a more economical solution were not adequate and efficiently implemented. High expenditures for these purposes are still present, indicating uneconomical use of budget funds.

Although the Ministry has undertaken certain activities since 2006 aimed at reducing expenditure on accommodation for active military personnel, a clear and comprehensive commitment to finding and implementing a more economical solution has been lacking. The Ministry's activities most often ended with simple analyses, without clear and concrete commitments.

The activities initiated by the Ministry in 2013 to partially resolve the issue of accommodating active military personnel in adapted facilities at three locations within barracks (Rajlovac, Čapljina and Derventa) are also inefficient, and the opportunity to achieve savings and economical use of budget funds continues to be missed.

More detailed information on the findings, conclusions and recommendations of this audit can be found in the complete report available on the website of the Audit Office of the Institutions of BiH.