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

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