PRESS RELEASES AND ANNOUNCEMENTS

SDP Uses the Company ‘Autoceste Federacije BiH’ (FBiH Motorways) for Founding and Conducting of Election Campaign

Press releases ● 06 October 2014

Banja Luka, 6^th October 2014 – Transparency International Bosnia and Herzegovina (TI BiH) strongly condemns the repeated practice of political parties to finance the election campaign through public enterprises and institutions.

The latest example of such practice is the campaign of ‘Autoceste Federacije BiH‘ (FBiH Motorways) on construction of motorway on corridor Vc, which flooded the media and billboards and was artfully timed to be conducted during the election campaign in order to be used for political purposes of the Social-democratic Party, which based almost entire election campaign on the work of that enterprise by privatizing and usurping the motorway project.

TI BiH reminds that public enterprises, such as ‘Autoceste Federacije BiH‘ (FBiH Motorways), are neither the property of political parties nor the Social-democratic Party, despite the fact that the management of this public enterprise is selected on the basis of kinship ties with their representatives, and such examples represent abuse of the institutions and public enterprises for election campaigning.

Ti BiH has issued a request to the ‘Autoceste Federacije BiH‘ (FBiH Motorways) to submit information on total cost of this campaign, and hereby urges the competent authorities to act according to the law and sanction this frequent practice of the parties in power to use the institutions and public enterprises to finance their election campaign.

SDP Uses the Company ‘Autoceste Federacije BiH’ (FBiH Motorways) for Founding and Conducting of Election Campaign

The Institutions Have Not Met the Needs of Citizens after the Floods

Press releases ● 01 October 2014

Banja Luka, 1^st September 2014 – Transparency International Bosnia and Herzegovina (TI BiH) has presented the Report on citizen’s complaints related to the abuse in the aid allocation for flood-hit areas, as well as the field research on actions taken by the institutions in the flood-hit areas.

Complaints of citizens and the field research have showed that the institutions at all levels of the government demonstrated incapability to meet the needs of citizens. It has been pointed to the lack of coordination between the institutions, which have accused each other of political obstruction, as well as politization of entire process of allocation of aid and funds for flood-hit areas, which has been manifested through inter-party conflicts and use of aid for election promotion.  The field research has indicated the unequal access to registration which would allow allocation of aid and help to citizens affected by floods. That is the reason why citizen’s doubt regarding fairness and objectivity in aid allocation was raised.

Because of this, TI BiH has received more than 500 calls of citizens who complained on: the sale and theft of humanitarian aid, the bias in aid allocation, irregularities in the damage assessment process and the allocation of credit cards and vouchers. What concerns the most is the fact that the relevant institutions have not informed citizens about the criteria for aid allocation and how they can receive and use the aid. This was expected, because the adoption of the Law on the Solidarity Fund of the Republic of Srpska, and the relevant laws in Federation BiH were highly non-transparent and from the start the criteria for aid allocation has not been provided. On the basis of the complaints, TI BiH forwarded 23 citizens’ complaints to the relevant institutions -the Police and the Republic Commission for Damage Assessment – the institutions forwarded some of the complaints to the prosecutor’s offices.

What is worrying is the total absence of the strategic approach of the authorities of BiH for the following period, which is reflected in the absence of transparency of the criteria for allocation of aid and funds raised through the Donor Conference and the lack of the restoration plans, not only for infrastructure and housing, but also for already frail economy to which floods inflicted grievous blow.

The Institutions Have Not Met the Needs of Citizens after the Floods

In Two Weeks Time Ten Political Parties Spent 780.000 only on Advertising

Press releases ● 30 September 2014

Banja Luka, 30^th September 2014 – Transparency International Bosnia and Herzegovina (TI BiH) has conducted monitoring and analysis of the second week of the election campaign of 10 selected political parties, taking into consideration advertising in electronic and print media. In the first two weeks of the campaign, the monitoring results have shown that ten political parties have spent more than 780.000 KM only for the advertising space in electronic and print media (10 TV stations and 9 printed publications).

The Party of Democratic Action and the Alliance for Change are on the leading positions when it comes to advertising expenses. In the first two weeks of the campaign, the Party of Democratic Action spent on advertising 285.000 KM, along with preparation of ads which had cost 90.000 KM the total cost of advertising amounted to 375.000 KM in. On the other side, the Alliance for Change spent on advertising around 160.000 KM, which along with the ads preparation that had cost 135.000 amounted to 295.000KM. It is interesting that in the first week of the campaign, the Party of Democratic Action had more than 50% of published ads than all parties together, while in the second week of the campaign that party published 44% of total number of ads.

The cost of advertising of the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats and their coalition partners the Democratic People’s Alliance was 150.000 KM, along with add preparation the total amount of money spent for these purposes was about 257.000 KM. Candidates who advertise the most are Mr. Bakir Izetbegović and Mr. Ognjen Tadić.

The interesting fact is that some of the political parties like the Democratic Front and People’s Party for Work and Progress have not advertised on the media included in the monitoring, and the political party Union for Better Future has published a very small number of ads. This can be partly explained by recent arrest of some officials of the People’s Party for Work and Progress, and the fact that the leader of the Union for Better Future has its own media company which he uses for his promotion, so additional advertising is not necessary.

It is still the practice in the Republic of Srpska that only the ruling coalition advertises on the Public Broadcasting Service RTRS, and that BN TV advertises only the opposition parties.

Bearing in mind the fact that political parties advertise the most in the last two weeks of the campaign, it is expected that by the end of the campaign amounts of money spent on advertising are to increase significantly. On the other side, TI BiH reiterates that all mentioned amounts do not include the cost of outdoor advertising (billboards, posters, etc.) or rallies.

TI BiH uses this opportunity to once more warn political parties to lead more transparent election campaign, especially public officials who are candidates in the upcoming elections, to restrain themselves from using functions performed in the institutions in order to promote political parties to which they belong.

In Two Weeks Time Ten Political Parties Spent 780.000 only on Advertising

Konferencija povodom Međunarodnog dana slobode pristupa informacijama

Announcements ● 28 September 2014

BiH Joined the OGP Initiative

Announcements ● 26 September 2014

Sarajevo, 26^th September 2014 – In the past two years, Transparency International Bosnia and Herzegovina along with the Foundation CPI (Centre for Public Interest Advocacy), the Center for Social Research Analitika, the Centre for Investigative Journalism and the Open Society Fund of BiH have organized numerous activities and initiated advocacy in order to ensure BiH  enters the Open Government Partnership Initiative, and at the meeting in UN Headquarters, held on 24^th September 2014,  BiH was formally introduced as a new member of the Open Government Partnership. This also represents an official confirmation of BiH intentions to make additional efforts in terms of transparency and openness of government, as well as cooperation with citizens and civil society in accordance with the objectives of economic and social development of the country on the path towards European integration.

BiH accession to the Open Government Initiative represents a confirmation of the outstanding advocacy efforts of the TI BiH and partnership organization made during the accession process. In the past two years, TI BiH has actively been engaged in advocacy and education of the government and civil society regarding the OGP Initiative, and also gave its contribution to BiH accession to the Initiative. In cooperation with mentioned organizations, TI BiH has organized regional workshops in order to present specifics of the Initiative to the public and government representatives, as well as the experiences of the countries in the region. Successful connection with the institutions and organizations was also achieved as well as the participation in global and regional OGP summits, the education was provided along with many other activities.

The next step of BiH, in which TI BiH will actively participate, is to make the Action Plan, which will precisely define issues that have to be worked on in order to achieve the set of principles and improvement in the areas defined as problematic. The issues will be defined by the representatives of the government and civil society – the focus of whole idea of the OGP Initiative is the cooperation and co decision.

The action planning and all forthcoming steps that BiH must take will be presented on the next conference that will be organized by TI BiH on the occasion of the International Right to Know Day, which will be held in Sarajevo on 29^th September 2014. The representatives of the government and civil society will be informed of the procedures of adoption of the action plan and outline of future plans and activities.

Formal accession of BiH to the Open Government Partnership initiative represents the test for the government institutions and their commitment to transparency, considering that the phases of planning and implementation of the concrete measures are to occur in the future. TI BiH will continue with the active engagement in this area and expresses the hope that BiH’s Action Plan for the OGP Initiative will not be one in the series of documents which were adopted but not applied.

BiH Joined the OGP Initiative

SDA do sada najviše utrošila na kampanju

Press releases ● 24 September 2014

Građani potpuno nezadovoljni javnom upravom

Press releases ● 22 September 2014

Prezentacija istraživanja o javnoj upravi

Announcements ● 19 September 2014

Kandidati koji su na rukovodećim pozicijama u državnoj službi dužni su podnijeti ostavku

Press releases ● 16 September 2014

TI BiH počeo sa monitoringom izborne kampanje

Press releases ● 12 September 2014

Prosecuting of Corruption on the Lowest Level in the Last 5 Years

Press releases ● 07 August 2014

Banja Luka, 6^th August 2014 – Transparency international and the Open Society Fund BIH have published the Report on the monitoring of prosecution of corruption in the courts and prosecutors’ offices in BiH for the period 2012-2013, which presented the data on the efficiency of courts and prosecutors’ offices in detection and prosecution of corruption offences. Unfortunately, the data on Monitoring show a drastic decline in the number of prosecuted cases, as well as cases reported to prosecutors’ office, conducted investigations, indictments and judgments rendered for this kind of criminal offences.

Starting with the number of reports for corruption offences in the work of prosecutors’ offices a significant decrease has been noted in 2013, when prosecutors’ offices at all levels noted 2.363 reports, comparing with 3.174 reports in 2012, which represents the decrease of 25%. It was also noted the dramatic decline in the number of investigations of corruption offences in 2013, when only 747 investigations were conducted, which was almost halved comparing to 2012. The largest decrease was reported in the Republic of Srpska where 60% less investigations were recorded during 2013 in regard to the previous year, whereas the decline of 45% was noted in the Federation of BiH.

When it comes to indictments for criminal cases of corruption, a slight improvement has been noted, and in 2013 prosecutors’ offices rendered 265 indictments for corruption offences, comparing with 2012 when 223 indictments were rendered. This growth is a result of an increased number of conducted investigations in 2012, and it was expected that certain number of these investigations would result in the indictments during the following year.

However, the data relating to court rulings show that the worst results were achieved in sentencing the perpetrators of corruption in the last 5 years, both in the number of judgments and in the very structure of rulings for these criminal offences. For example, in 2013, the Court of BiH rendered only 3 judgments on corruption offences, one of which was an acquittal. Prosecution of corruption in the Court of Federation of BiH also noted a decline comparing to the previous 4 years- in 2013, 78 judgments on corruption offences were rendered, comparing with 124 judgments in 2012, 113 judgments in 2011, and per 91 judgments for 2010 and 2009. The same decrease is reflected in the number of 60 verdicts in the FBiH during 2013, which was less in comparison with the number of verdicts delivered during previous years.

The devastating data are shown in the case of the courts at all levels in the Republic of Srpska, which rendered 60 judgments on corruption offences in 2013, which represents a decline of 50% in comparison with 2012. During the last five years, the number of rendered judgments on corruption offences in the RS has been constantly decreasing, and the worst results were achieved in 2013, when courts at all levels rendered 37 judgments, which represents a decrease of 40%.

In 2013, total number of judgments rendered on crimes of corruption in BiH was 147, out of which 102 were convictions versus 36 acquittals and 9 rejected cases, which has generally been the worst result since the beginning of conduction of these researches by TI BiH. Analysis of available data has shown that out of 147 judgments 103 judgments were rendered for criminal offense of abuse of office and embezzlement in service, while for receiving gifts and other forms of benefits the court ruled in 6 cases and for the crime of unlawful mediation the court rendered only one judgment, and that was acquittal.

All these data indicate the inefficiency of the judiciary in prosecuting corruption, which we have been witnessing for years but during the last one it reached its peak. The results have shown that the judiciary in BiH continues to prosecute cases of corruption at lower levels of the government, given that the majority of cases have been delivered by the primary and municipal courts. In this way, the biggest corruption scandals, to which the media and civil society have warned, are still remaining uninvestigated and unprosecuted, further undermining the public confidence in the judiciary. TI BiH warns that without an active role of judiciary and judicial condemnation of corruption at higher levels of the government, laws and strategies adopted to fight against corruption will have no meaning and no one can expect any progress.

Announced the Information on the Owners of Oil Industry of the Republic of Srpska

Press releases ● 04 July 2014

In 2007, TI BiH requested from the Government of the RS to disclose the names of owners of three companies whose 60% of ownership stake is in possession of a buyer of a Russian company NefteGazInKor- Invest Technology, Nepat and Unique Development, which were registered recently before the privatization process. TI BiH and public have never received this information, which creates space for doubts that the majority owners of the Refinery are not the Russian companies or the Russian Federation, as it was presented in public, but that they are in the highest level of the Government of the RS that conducted the process of criminal privatization or individuals closely associated with the regime.

Six years ago, TI BiH identified 44 disputable clauses of the contract of privatization of the Oil Industry and found that the Government of the RS bought back the Refinery’s previous debts, settled court liabilities of the company, underestimated the real value of the company, and entered in the credit obligations provided by the NefteGazInKor in a non-transparent way. Thereby, the Government of the RS had initially damaged the budget and redirected over a billion KM of taxpayers’ money to the private accounts of unknown people. On the other hand, the former refinery operational profit amounted to less than 500 million KM, bringing the entire property of the Oil Industry of the RS into the hands of the same unknown buyers, who, in this way, managed to get the whole industry in their ownership with all the privileges and preferential treatment that has since been effective.

The claims of TI BiH about continuous money laundering have been confirmed in the report of the audit firm “Deloitte” for 2013, which has shown that the accumulated loss of the Refinery is bigger than 500 million KM, and that the debt is two times bigger than the profit of the company.

Privatization of the Oil Industry through direct negotiations, management of the Refinery, and the privileges that the Government of the RS gave to the buyers and the Refinery itself, as well as the facts that the information on the owners of firms in majority ownership in NefteGazInKor has been kept as secret for years, lead to a conclusion that the main goal of the privatization was enrichment of the individuals from the shadow who robbed one of the largest companies in BiH. From 2007 and on, TI BiH has urged the Government of the RS to disclose the information on the owners of the Oil Industry in the RS without further delays.[:] (more…)

Public Administration Reform without Significant Results

Press releases ● 02 July 2014

Although, the public administration reform has been in focus for over 10 years, on which more than 10 million KM of donor funds have been spent, the Public Administration Strategy that was adopted in 2006 has had very limited impact on citizens and quality of service that citizens receive from the public administration institutions.

While presenting the project, Ms. Lejla Ibranović, program manager of the TI BiH, emphasized that the public administration reform is a priority in the process of joining the EU, but the political elite in BiH has not been committed to the reform processes, and the public administration reform has been seen only as one of the conditions that BiH has to fulfill rather than the key precondition for effective government and economic growth.

In his opening remarks, Mr. Pelle Persson, Director of Swiss International Development Agency in BiH (SIDA), said that aside from the lack of the political will for more efficient reform, the main reason for the lack of the progress is division within the administration that enables political influence on public administration and its clientele, which cannot result in more efficient spending of public finds and work of the public administration.

The politicization of administration and employment that is not based on merits, that lead to the lack of competent staff, inadequate mechanisms for evaluation of employee’s performance, incompetence of the management’s structures and general lack of integrity are recognized as key issues in the field of human resources management.

The complexity of administration structures and inadequate management of human resources lead to inefficiency in the expenditure of public funds, having in mind the percentage of expenditures spent on salaries of public administration employees. However, the research conducted by TI BiH has shown that 45% of budget expenditures have been allocated to salaries, which is far more than 25% that is recommended by the World Bank. Not including the transfers and subventions, this percentage is even higher- 70%, which is additional indication that this proportion cannot enable significant capital investments and development projects which would improve the BiH economy.  When we take into consideration that almost half of the GDP goes to the public administration, the need for the reform that would reduce the administrative apparatus and increase its efficiency is clearer.

Unfortunately, along with the lack of the political support the reform process has encountered other obstacles, such as the lack of coordination between the governments at different levels, poor development and coordination policy, unclear accountability lines, lack of experienced and qualified staff, the administration resistance to change, and so on. For these reasons, it has been emphasized the need for stronger involvement of civil society, which would ensure a link between citizens and public administration and involve them in the reform process in order to implement processes that would give results for the citizens, which is the ultimate goal of this project that will be conducted during the next four years by TI BiH and CIN, with the support of SIDA and the Kingdom of Denmark.

Presented Findings on the Public Administration Reform

Press releases ● 01 July 2014

The goal of the project “Public Administration Reform Monitoring- PARM” is to contribute to better implementation of the Public Administration Reform Strategy and greater participation of civil society organization in the reform process with the aim of creating more transparent, efficient and effective public administration that would be useful to all citizens. Also, this project aims to indicate on immediate and concrete impact of the implementation of the public administration reform, as well as the progress of the implementation of the main goals of the institutional reform and public administration reform through the independent monitoring of the results and evaluation of the implementation of the public administration.

The conference represents an opportunity to discuss about the hitherto effects of the Public Administration Reform Strategy, and about the extent to which it has improved coherence, efficiency and effectiveness of the public administration and its institutions, and to reduce fragmentation within and between different levels of government.

The conference will be held on Wednesday, 2^nd July 2014, with the beginning at 11.00 a.m. at the Hotel Bristol in Sarajevo. The agenda is attached below, and the conference will be opened to the media.

Presentation of the “Civil Society Sustainability Project (CSSP) in BiH”

Press releases ● 30 June 2014

Introductory remarks of the event moderator were followed by the presentation of the ten-minute film about the issues of the sectors on which the civil society organizations and partners of the project CSSP will work in the following period. The attendees were addressed by Mr. David Barth, Director of the USAID Mission in BiH, Mr. Zlatan Ohranović, Executive Director of the CCI, and Ms. Aida Daguda, Executive Director of CPCD and Baroness Warsi, the representative of the Government of the UK. On completion of introductorz speeches, the partnership organizations were presented and guests were invited to visit civil society organizations’ fair located in the adjacent hall, and thus learn more about the projects of the organizations initiated through informal gathering and exchange of information.

Our organization will implement this project in cooperation with Center for Investigative Journalism.

Draft Law on Solidarity Fund does not Provide Transparent Allocation of Funds

Press releases ● 13 June 2014

Banja Luka 13^th June 2014 – Transparency International Bosnia and Herzegovina (TI BiH), Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly (HCA), Center for Environment and Ostra Nula have sent to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Republic of Srpska their comments on the draft Law on Solidarity Fund for restoration of the Republic of Srpska, although the Law came to the Parliamentary Assembly of the RS in emergency procedure without the possibility of public debate.

The comments and suggestions submitted by these organizations stated a need for detailed definition of the criteria for allocation of funds and restoration of damage in the Law itself, instead of leaving the space for the Government to define these provisions subsequently. Conditions, modes, procedures, form and extent of the use of funds for restoration of damage should be proscribed by the Law rather than by subsequent decisions of the Government, in order to avoid discretion in regulating these procedures and their arbitrary interpretation. The fact that the Board of Directors of the Fund has been mainly consisted of the Government representatives enables the Government to have monopoly over the decision- making process, while on the other side citizens and civil sector are not allowed to monitor and influence on decision-making process.

Not only that the terms in the Law and the procedures for evaluation and restoration of the damage have been vaguely defined which may lead to arbitrary decision-making, but also the Draft Law does not guarantee transparency of the allocation of funds and decision-making. Therefore, the organizations have clearly stated the need for timely publication of detailed lists of all individual payments and donations to the account of the Fund, as well as the lists of all individual expenditures  in order to ensure the transparent work of the Fund.

TI BiH, HCA, Center for Environment and Ostra Nula remind that the resources at the disposal to the Solidarity Fund are intended to help those affected by the floods, and that it must provide fair and transparent allocation of funds and avoid any potential abuse. Unfortunately, the proposed solutions that have been sent to the Parliamentary Assembly of the RS, leave too many possibilities for arbitrary interpretation and allocation of funds, and do not give citizens a guarantee that the funds would actually be allocated to those in greatest need.

Draft Law on Solidarity Fund does not Provide Transparent Allocation of Funds