No Seriousness of Authorities in the Fight against Corruption from the Start

14 January 2014

Banja Luka 14th January 2014- Transparency International Bosnia and Herzegovina (TI B&H), with the support of the Open Society Fund B&H has published the fifth Report on the Monitoring of the Anti-Corruption Strategy (2009-2014) and Action Plan.

The monitoring results have shown that almost four years since the adoption of the Anti-Corruption Strategy and just before the expiry of its application, out of the total number of measures (81), only 8 measures (9,8 %) have been completely realized, 57 measures (70,4%) have been partly realized, while 16 measures (19,8 %) have not been realized. Having in mind that formal period for implementation of the Strategy ends in the near future these results are far from the satisfactory.

Only in the last Reporting Period, The Agency for the Prevention of Corruption and Coordination of the Fight against Corruption has begun to hire staff, provide technical requirements for the functioning and undertake activities to meet statutory authority.

The Problems that the Agency encountered from the very beginning had a negative impact on the level of implementation of the Strategy. On top of that, recently adopted Amendments to the Law on Conflict of Interest have enabled the work of the Commission for the Resolution of Conflict of Interest within the Agency. Thus, the Agency, as a part of obligations referring to conflict of interest, has been committed to take over eight employees of the Department of the Conflict of Interest of the Central Election Commission.

The lack of willingness of other institutions encompassed by the Strategy is reflected in their delay of the implementation of obligations prescribed by the Strategy, inconsistency of its application at different levels of government and a delay of almost two years in securing resources for the Agency. This shows that since adoption of the Strategy there has not been genuine political will among the members of the current government to conduct its implementation.

The period for implementation of the Anti-Corruption Strategy ends this year, and thereafter the development of the new one is planned. According to the monitoring results and the reports that have been published by TI B&H during the four-year period intended for the implementation of the Strategy, the main conclusion is that the opportunity presented by this strategic document is missed, and that the Anti-Corruption Strategy 2009-2014 represents one of the many documents that have not produced any results due to complete lack of willingness of the authorities and the law enforcement agencies.

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