Address by the Chairman of the Board of Directors, Mr. Srdjan Blagovcanin, on the occasion of celebrating the International Anti-Corruption Day

“Your Excellencies, representatives of the national institutions, civic society and media, ladies and gentlemen.

It is my pleasure to welcome you and address you at this traditional conference on the occasion of celebrating the International Anti-Corruption Day.

The International Anti-Corruption Day is marked ever since December 9^th 2003, when the UN Convention against Corruption has been opened for signing.

The inevitable question is how much BiH managed to achieve in the fight against corruption and the rule of law until now?

Today, BiH has, at different levels, 13 bodies dedicated to the prevention and suppression of corruption, 11 anti-corruption strategies and 12 action plans, and a lot of integrity plans developed by the individual institutions.

Yet, according to the findings of the Global Corruption Barometer of Transparency International, 82% of citizens are not pleased with the efforts made by the authorities to fight corruption, considering that they are doing nothing or almost nothing in this regard.

According to the data of the Global Competitiveness Index of the World Economic Forum 2017-2018 there are two key problems in BiH that prevent business development – inefficient administration and corruption.

The findings of the Corruption Perceptions Index of Transparency International, have been placing BiH at the very top of the list of the most corrupt European countries. According to the last Index, BiH has been placed in the 83^rd position of the global list, having scored 39 index points measured on the scale 0 – 100.

For years now, the Center for legal advice of Transparency International BiH receives daily reports of the citizens referring to the corruption in employment procedures, public procurement and many other areas. What most worries those who dare to report corruption is the fact that they are usually confronted with threats and vengeance.

All this undoubtedly suggests that the corruption today and here, as it was at the time the International Anti-Corruption day started to be marked, is the main problem.

Particularly dangerous is the presence of the most difficult form of corruption – political corruption and the capture of the country and institutions by the narrow interests of the highest political power holders.

Unfortunately, in the past period, instead of reforming the judiciary, we witnessed a complete devastation of the judicial system. If a key criterion of the judicial independence is to prosecute the political corruption, then we can conclude that the BiH judiciary is under political control and completely captured by the interests of the holders of the highest political functions.

Therefore, the budgetary funds and public enterprises are easy targets for the political elites that use these as the ATM machines to gain the personal wealth.

Public sector has become its own purpose and it keeps developing as the paradise oasis for the political personnel, while providing basic services to the citizens, such as water supply and securing travel documents is performed with a lot of problems and delays.

Numerous abuses of the public funds, written about by the media and asked for the responsibility by the civil society organizations, remained without institutional reply.

It is therefore no wonder that in the past few years the country faces an epic exodus of citizens, with no sign it will decrease.

In such situation it is important to identify the key source of the problem. No doubt, political parties that keep the citizens, institutions and the entire country captured, are most to be blamed for such condition. Nowadays political parties, that is, narrow groups at their top, with no elementary, internal democracy, based on clientelism and nepotism, have unlimited control over all the resources and institutions in the country that they use for their own enrichment. Their only interest is to maintain the existing situation, which is quite understandable. Political parties today and here are everything except what political parties in modern democracies should be. They act as employment services, intermediary agencies that ensure winning of tenders, donor of budgetary funds to the obedient and the like.

Although they support reforms declaratively, in practice they will do everything to make sure they will never be implemented. They cause continuous crisis, use hate speech and ethnic homogenization with one goal only – to keep the main problem, corruption, out of the agenda.

That is why we need to be aware that political corruption, captured country and institutions represent political problems, and as such, request political solutions.

To expect political will for anti-corruption fight from the corrupt political leaderships would be the same as to expect a pyromaniac to put out the fire.

Still, giving up has never been and can never be an option. It is clear that reforms cannot be implemented in any single sector without successful anti-corruption fight.

Therefore, there is a big and important task ahead of us. This is not about changing the rules of game within the political system.

A successful anti-corruption fight implies the society democratization, specifically democratization of political parties. Only in this way it would be possible to make the first step towards the breakup of the clientelism structures that keep this country captured. Political parties must be deprived of the control over public enterprises, judiciary, law enforcement agencies and independent regulatory bodies.

A huge dissatisfaction of the citizens is almost tangible, but in order to use it to make positive changes it has to be articulated first.

Articulation of dissatisfaction with the general corruption must be turned into specific actions. Laws, strategies and plans make an important first step, but they are nothing more valuable than the paper they are written on unless they are implemented.

Establishing a unique front of civil society, institutions, business community, international institutions and organizations is the most important task for all of us participating in the anti-corruption fight.

Sarajevo, 12^th December, 2017