BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA WORST IN THE REGION ACCORDING TO THE CORRUPTION PERCEPTION INDEX: BIH COMPLETELY DEVASTED BY CORRUPTION – THE SITUATION IS GETTING WORSE

Sarajevo, January 31, 2023 – Bosnia and Herzegovina once again fell behind in this year’s survey of the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) published by Transparency International (TI) and ranks by far the lowest in the region and third worst in Europe when it comes to the state of corruption in the country. Only Russia and Ukraine achieved a result worse than Bosnia and Herzegovina, which, with a score of 34 on a scale of 0 to 100, is among the countries where the state of corruption is worsening the most. While numerous countries in the region are moving forward, Bosnia and Herzegovina has fallen as many as 8 index points since 2012 and, along with Turkey, in this year’s TI global report, was singled out as an example of the biggest decline compared to 2012 in the region of Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

BiH records the worst trend of all surrounding countries, which is best illustrated by the example of Kosovo, which from 2012 to 2022 progressed from a score of 34 to 41 index points, while in the same ten years BiH fell from 45 to 34 points. In the key findings for the region of Eastern Europe and Central Asia, it is stated that the countries of the Western Balkans cannot suppress organized crime due to the deterioration of the rule of law and a captive judiciary.

It was especially emphasized that Bosnia and Herzegovina is at a historic low, and that ethnic divisions are hindering democratic institutions needed to fight corruption, which was especially evident in the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina, for which it is stated that there are serious doubts about its ability to prosecute corruption, and that the appointment of the new chief prosecutor of BiH took place in a very flawed procedure in which three of the four original candidates either gave up or were eliminated. Numerous corruption scandals, resignations and the very method of selecting the chief prosecutor have seriously called into question the integrity of the Prosecutor’s Office, it was stated in the regional announcement.

Due to this situation, a number of important cases of organized crime and corruption, including those involving high officials, have not been processed in the judiciary for years. Just one of the latest examples is the trial for those responsible for the crime in Bobar Bank worth over 100 million BAM, which after a long judicial farce ended with the acquittal of one of the first defendants in this case, and numerous other corruption cases had a similar epilogue.

It should also be noted that the General Election in 2022 was accompanied by a series of scandals involving theft of votes, election committees trafficking and abuse of public resources. This problem was not solved by the imposition of amendments to the Electoral Law by the High Representative, whose actions only further deepened the political crisis and did not solve the problem of complete blockade of the government, which continues to act primarily as an instrument of political parties to strengthen their own control over all processes in the state.

Evaluating the findings of the Index, the Chairman of the Management Board of TI BiH, Srđan Blagovčanin pointed out:

“Not only there is no strategy, policy or activity of state institutions to prevent corruption, but state institutions, completely captured by political control, focus their activities almost entirely on causing corruption. Unfortunately, corruption has become the primary reason for the existence of institutions. A special danger for the state is the complete symbiosis of organized crime and state institutions, which will lead to further destabilization of the country and the collapse of security.”

Srđan Blagovčanin, Chairman of the Management Board of TI BiH

This year’s TI report emphasizes that corruption has led to serious consequences for global peace because it causes decline of democracy and strengthening of authoritarian leaders, while peace and stability become endangered in countries with a lower index. These tendencies have been present in BiH for years, and as stated in the TI report, “an additional reason for concern is the leader of the Republic of Srpska and his recent mention of the Criminal Defamation Law which could be used to silence independent critics.”.

In the past year, Bosnia and Herzegovina received candidate status for membership in the European Union, but this took place without the implementation of essential reforms from 14 priorities, so the poor result of the CPI in Bosnia and Herzegovina was expected primarily due to the absence of key reforms such as amendments to the Election Law and the Law on Political Parties Financing, the Law on Conflict of Interest, the Law on Protection of Whistleblowers on Corruption, the law on the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council, and attempts to adopt laws that are worse than the existing ones under the guise of reforms are particularly worrying.

Urgent action to prevent further deterioration of the country is imposed as a priority, without which it is impossible to expect the initiation of important reform processes.

TI BIH, in cooperation with international and domestic experts, drafted a proposal for the Good Governance Agenda 2025, thus offering an innovative approach to governance challenges in the country, caused by dominant capture of the state by ethno-national elites. The Agenda presents a set of anti-corruption measures beyond the typical and conventional, which could potentially free these efforts from obstruction by political elites.

Some of the measures refer to: implementation of systemic functional audits of the public sector in order to optimize it, centralization of public procurement, integrity improvement of the electoral process and political parties.

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Presentation of CPI 2022 findings

More on the Results of the CPI Corruption Perceptions Index Survey for 2022