Criminal Charges Against Minister Vojin Mitrović: Illegal Regulations Enable Millions from Vehicle Registration to be Directed to a Private Company

Banja Luka, September 16, 2022 – Transparency International in BiH (TI BIH) filed a criminal complaint against the Minister of Transport and Communications of BiH, Vojin Mitrović, two days ago, for illegal adoption of a new Rulebook on Vehicle Registration, which opens up the possibility of directing significant revenues charged by the state to private companies in the future.

With this Rulebook, which came into force on September 1, Mitrović enabled the Ministry to hand over the work of purchasing stickers, which until now had been handled by state institutions, to an “expert institution” that would be selected through a public competition.

For drivers in BiH, it is now also possible, when registering their vehicles in the future, to pay the fee to that “expert institution” chosen by the Ministry, which practically means that significant public funds would be diverted to a private company.

Everything was done illegally, because the minister with a rulebook, which is an act of lower legal force, can only prescribe provisions on the appearance and content of the sticker, and only the law can give public powers. However, not a single article of the Law on the Basics of Traffic Safety on Roads in Bosnia and Herzegovina stipulates that the minister has the authority to prescribe who will procure stickers and collect public revenues.

That is why TI BIH believes that Mitrović committed the criminal offense of abuse of official position or authority from Article 220 of the Criminal Code of BiH, which can be committed by an official if he/she exceeds his/her authority in order to obtain benefits for himself/herself or others. The proof that there is a clear intention to benefit others is reflected in the very precisely set conditions in the Rulebook that must be met by the “expert institution”. As one of the conditions, it is stated that persons employed as team members in a “expert institution” must possess certain certificates, which a few years ago, during the million-dollar procurement of software for the company Forests of the Republic of Srpska, awarded by only one company, which in recent years received tens of millions of marks in tenders in the Republic of Srpska.

Also, this Rulebook requires the bidder to possess the ISO standard 18000-63, which is stated on the website of the International Organization for Standards ISO as a standard withdrawn from use. By setting such conditions, they are obviously trying to favor certain bidders and limit competition, and a particular problem is that a private company is given the competences already held by the state Agency for Identification Documents, Records and Data Exchange (IDDEEA). The Agency previously announced that the Ministry ignored their opinion, which states that the introduction of new stickers with RFID technology is unnecessary because the competent Ministries of the Interior have already acquired a large number of cameras that check whether the vehicle is registered via license plates. For this reason, IDEEA states that the introduction of expensive new technology, that would do the same thing, is unnecessary and will cost drivers more, but will also require additional investment in equipment for reading new chips. Additional problems are seen in security

issues, because the Rulebook allows a private company to dispose of citizens’ data, and this can lead to the misuse of technology that allows locating and tracking vehicles.

Bearing in mind all of the above, it is evident that this is again about passing regulations tailored to individuals, as we already had the opportunity to see, with the passing of the Law on Games of Chance in the Republic of Srpska, where the exclusive right to organize games was given to a private company connected to the persons at the top of the government.

This move is an obvious example of how a captive state functions, where institutions serve the interests of individuals and the ruling elite instead of the public.

Press rls_16.09.22_ (en)