The Council of Ministers allowed the use of official vehicles for personal purposes

By adopting the Amendments to the Regulation governing the use of official vehicles, the Council of Ministers legalized the irresponsible use of the same, since it will enable the use of vehicles for personal purposes

Sarajevo 2th June 2017 – By the most recent Amendments to the Regulation on procurement and use of official vehicles the Council of Ministers enabled the use of official vehicles for 24h. The auditors have previously, in their reports, recommended to institutions to harmonize their internal acts with the Regulation so to avoid the use of official vehicles for 24h, but the latest Amendments eliminated every ground to provide such recommendations given with the goal of more responsible disposal of public funds.
Transparency International in Bosnia and Herzegovina (TI BiH) believes that by By adopting such Amendments to the Regulation governing the use of official vehicles, the Council of Ministers legalized the irresponsible use of the same, since it will enable the use of vehicles for personal purposes. The official vehicles are used for official purposes of BiH institutions, and therefore TI BiH is warning that the Head of an institution should not be given any discretionary power to decide by himself and on the basis of an internal act when the use of official vehicles is allowed. This issue should be regulated in a way that the Regulation provides a list of situations and circumstances as to when and under what conditions it is allowed to use the official vehicles for 24h, with the assurance that the use of vehicles is for official purposes only.
TI BiH needs to remind you of numerous previous abuses of official vehicles for personal purposes, and one of the most recent examples is the official vehicle of Bakir Izetbegovic, a Member of BiH Presidency, which was used by his wife, for private purposes, and aroused great indignation of citizens. Still, instead of improving procedures and preventing such abuses, the Amendments to the Regulation adopted by the Council of Ministers are aimed at the liberalization of the regulations and use of official vehicles, in order to be able to use them for private purposes and in a non-transparent way. Press rls – 27.6.2017.