Elektroprivreda BiH is violating the Law on free access to information

Banja Luka, 15.12.2011 – After Transparency International Bosnia and Herzegovina (TI BIH) sent a request to Elektroprivreda BiH to deliver their contract made with Rudnap Group a.d. Belgrade, Elektroprivreda BiH answered that the contract is confidential, and that TI BIH should have the approval of Rudnap for submitting the respected contract.

This way, Elektroprivreda violated the Law on free access to informationion several ways, firstly by not delivering the contract which they as a public company are required by law to submit, and by not responding to TI BIH in form of a decision, thus disabling Ti BiH to use the legal means and appeal to relevant institutions.

On the other hand, Elektroprivreda immediately refused to give an answer and marked the contract as confidential, although they were first obliged to make a test of public interest which would determine whether it is justified to make the contract confidential. At the same time, Elektroprivreda as a signatory to the contract is obliged to ask for the approval of the company with whom they made the contract, and not TI BIH. Elektroprivreda, in this way refused to implement the Law, asking TI BiH to contact a private company, which has no obligations under the Law on free access of information.

It is obvious that the practice of secrecy and lack of transparency in public contracting continues, and past experience has shown that when public institutions are not ready to act according to the Law and make information publicly available, the reason usually lies in the fact that they violated other laws besides the Law on free access of information.

TI BIH will use all legal means and insist on the publication of this contract, in order to determine the legality of the contract itself, and order for the public to be informed about what the contract itself implies.