Campaign financed by nobody?

Banja Luka, September 2, 2010— Transparency International Bosnia and Herzegovine (TI BiH) calls upon the Minister of Energy, Mining and Industry of Federation of BiH, Vahid Heco, to reveal a mystery about financing ofcampaign “Nijekasnozaboljiživot” (“Not late for better life”), that was made in cooperation between ElektroprivredaBiH and ministry headed by Mr. Heco.

TI BiHhas already warned the public that this campaign was used for a promotion of political party StrankazaBiH, and that ElektroprivredaBiH claims that this company neither took part in this campaign, nor financed it. The Ministry did not even answer to inquiry of TI BiHabout who financed and carried out the campaign. At the same time, Prime Minister of Federation of BiH, Mustafa Mujezinović, claims that the Government did not approve or finance this campaign, while mr.Hećo in his reaction to TI BiHpress release expressed pride about the fact that campaign is being connected to StrankazaBiH’ successes, and on the other hand, he also claims that “not a single convertible mark was spent out of federal budget for the campaign promoting energy projects”.

Considering this contradictory statements and the fact that, again, it was not explained what was the source of financing for the campaign, TI BiH considers that Mr.Hećo owes explanation to citizens about

• who is responsible for financing the Elektroprivreda campaign,
• what was the amount of fundsspent for the campaign,
• which agency, and in which way it was chosen to create and carry out the campaign.

Also, TI BiH calls upon Mr. Hećo to give the explanation of why the Ministry of Energy, Mining and Industry has not answered to this organization’s inquiry in a legal timeframee and therefore broke the Law on freedom of access to information.

As previously announced, even though it was deprived of information,TI BiHwill use all the legal remedies to get insight into contract on implementation of the campaign, in the attempt to inform citizens completely about the way their money is being spent.