Zvizdić Promised Increases, but State-Level Police Officers Still Have the Lowest Salaries!?

Police officers in state-level agencies, specifically the State Investigation and Protection Agency, the Directorate for Coordination of Police Bodies and the Border Police, have salaries lower than the earnings of police officers at other levels by as much as 500 KM, and this will remain the case in the coming period, despite earlier promises by Prime Minister Denis Zvizdić that this would change, writes the Patria news agency.

An increase in salaries for police officers of the DKPT, SIPA and the Border Police to bring them in line with members of the FUP and the MUP of the Sarajevo Canton was promised in June 2016 by Denis Zvizdić, Chairman of the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Dragan Mektić, Minister of Security of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Of the announced commitment to increase salaries for police officers at the state level, only insufficient effort and disappointment among members of the DKPT, SIPA and the Border Police remain.

The Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina on August 18 adopted decisions on the base amount for calculating salaries for employees in institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina and on the amount of annual leave allowance in institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina for 2017.

The base amount for calculating salaries was set at 475.69 KM, and the annual leave allowance at 300.00 KM, meaning they remain at the 2016 level, in accordance with the policy of the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina on limiting public spending on salaries and allowances for employees in BiH institutions.

This also applies to police officers, and as Patria learns, the increase in salaries for DKPT police officers did not occur, because one proposal also included a salary increase for commissioned police officers, which would require significantly higher budget allocations.

Incidentally, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the highest paid are police officers, inspectors and the director of the Federal Police Administration, whose earnings range from 1,100 KM, which police officers receive, to over 4,000 KM, which the director and some inspectors receive. The difference in earnings also exists in the cantons, where salaries range between 700 and 1,200 KM, while some commissioners, such as the one in the Una-Sana Canton, receive up to 3,600 KM.

Mektić therefore requested analyses from the police agencies, but for now there is nothing regarding the equalization of salaries for police officers.

Mektić also pointed out that it is problematic that it was said a police officer can have a 30 to 33 percent supplement for work, which in practice has lost its meaning, because their coefficient has been reduced in relation to their qualifications.

- That 30 percent was always, in the former state and everywhere, received by a police officer due to the complexity, difficulty and danger of the job they perform. That means this supplement should be outside the regularly calculated salary, which must be fair compared to, say, secondary school qualifications in administration. And that supplement for police officers should be a reward for doing that job, but they are actually disadvantaged for doing that job. This must change – Mektić told the media.