Citizens are mostly faced with corruption in employment

Citizens mostly complain about irregularities in employment procedures related to hiring of civil servants, and employees in public enterprises. In their reports citizens usually indicate the fact that it is known in advance who will be elected for the position, and complain about the lack of transparency in competition procedures.

Banja Luka, 5^th March 2018 – More than 1500 citizens submitted reports to Transparency International in Bosnia and Herzegovina (TI BiH) via toll-free line for corruption reporting 0800 55555, and TI BiH acted in more than 270 cases upon the reports made by citizens, journalists, activists and non-governmental organizations, in addition to the cases it initiated by itself in 2017.

This year almost half of the reported cases (47%) that TI BiH was involved in, referred to the public administration sector, followed by judiciary and education in which significantly higher number of reports related to high education sector was observed.

Citizens mostly complain about irregularities in employment procedures related to hiring of civil servants, and employees in public enterprises. In their reports citizens usually indicate the fact that it is known in advance who will be elected for the position, and complain about the lack of transparency in competition procedures. It is also obvious that the number of reports against corrupt actions submitted by the so-called whistleblowers increased. As an example of unlawful employment that ended in a proper way we would like to mention the abolition of the contract that Republic of Srpska Republic Administration for Geodetic and Property Affairs concluded with several persons, after TI BiH reported that those cases implied violation of the Labour Law.

Despite the fact that citizens have been complaining about irregularities in employment procedures for years, institutions still refuse to improve the laws and bylaws that would enhance transparency in employment, while many public institutions and enterprises are still not obliged to conduct public competition procedures, which leaves enough room for nepotism and party employment.

So, for example, TI BiH found that the Ministry of Education and Culture of RS has never adopted a set of rules governing the admission to the positions within pre-school institutions which now creates opportunities for uneven practices of admission of the professional staff. Upon the report made by TI BiH, the Ombudsman gave a recommendation to the relevant Ministry to urgently issue a set of rules in order to finally govern the employment process in pre-school institutions.

In 2017, TI BiH filed a lawsuit against 15 institutions for failing to submit information of public importance, and it won 15 administrative disputes in previously initiated cases due to the violation of the Law on Free Access to Information. Institutions still refuse to submit a great number of information by referring to exceptions such as protection of personal data or confidential commercial information.

An increased number of corruption reporters and types of reported corruption (suspicion of nepotism, party employment, abuses of official positions…) suggest that corruption is present all around BiH, but also that it dominates in public administration. Reports against the work of judicial bodies indicate that there is an expressed mistrust of citizens towards their work. At the same time, there is no single sign that a legal and institutional frame for anti-corruption fight was improved during the last year.

Press rls. 05.03.18.e.