Most of the Corruption Reports in Public Administration and Education

Banja Luka, 25^th March 2013. – During 2012 Advocacy and Legal Advice Centre byTransparency International Bosnia and Herzegovina (TIBiH), a project supported by the governments of Norway and Germany, as well as the Civil Right Defenders, received 972 calls through the open line for reporting corruption (0800 55555), and number of received reports in electronic forms, through the website www.ti-bih.org or by e-mail ,have been increasing. On the basis of these reports, TIBiH has initiated 208 cases to various institutions in BiH, in order to provide legal assistance to citizens in exercising their rights, and to indicate to individual cases of corruption.

The largest number of reports in 2012 referred to the public administration (19%), then (12%) to education, property rights (10%) and access to information (9%).

As well as in two previous years, most of the reports were related to the irregularities and to abuses in the recruitment process, where the partiality in the selection of candidates for different positions was noticed. The largest number of reports was related to irregular conduction of competitions for civil servants at all level of government, and to the recruitment of the staff in public enterprises and public institutions. Also, there were reports on irregular appointment procedures at all levels, or cases in which the conditions of competition were adjusted to preselected candidates.

During 2012 there have been 5 reports that referred to the irregularities in awarding of incentives for agriculture. It is necessary to emphasize that some of the incentives were awarded  by the Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Forestry to some non-farmers in order to obtain votes for the People’s Party Work for Progress (Narodna stranka Radom za boljitak), against which TIBiH submitted report on violation of the Law on financing of political parties to the Central Election Commission.

25 reports were related to corruption in education, which were 10 more reports than in 2011. It is interesting that 11 reports were related to higher education institutions, mostly because of non-transparency of competition procedures for selection of assistants and other teaching staff, and because of irregularities related to the projects that were being conducted at some universities etc.

On the basis of these reports TIBiH has contacted authorized institutions at all levels in BiH. However, the prosecution of corruption is still at unsatisfactory level because of the obstacles such are slow pace of administration and inadequate implementation of legislation on freedom of information at all levels.

Nevertheless, a noticeable increase in the number of reports in relation to the previous year, indicate to greater awareness of the citizens in the fight to their rights. TI BiH hopes that this practice will continue in the future and once again urges all who were witnesses or victims of corruption to report any irregularities to institutions through free phone line 0800 55555 or website www.ti-bih.org.