TI BiH filed to CEC reports against 8 political parties due to the illegal donations

TI BiH has filed reports against SDA, SDP, SBB, HDZ BiH, HDZ 1990, DF, DNS and PDP for receiving donations from legal entities that have concluded contracts with the organs of executive power. The most controversial donations have been found with SDA, which had reported donations from 20 companies that concluded contracts of total value higher than BAM 28 million in 2015 and 2016.

Sarajevo, 16th June 2017 – Transparency International in Bosnia and Herzegovina (TI BiH) has submitted to Central Election Commission reports against 8 political parties for violating the Law on Political Party Financing. The reports have been filed against Stranka demokratske akcije (SDA), Socijaldeomokratska partija (SDP), Savez za bolju budućnost (SBB), Hrvatska demokratska zajednica BiH (HDZ BiH), Hrvatska demokratska zajednica 1990 (HDZ 1990), Demokratska fronta (DF), Demokratski narodni savez (DNS) and Partija demokratskog progresa (PDP) for receiving donations from legal entities that concluded contracts with the organs of executive power whose value was more than BAM 10.000, which is against the Law.
Along with the reports TI BiH submitted for each political party a detailed list of disputable donations and tenders which indicated that the legal entities designated as donors by parties in their financial statements for 2016, were selected by the organs of executive power as the most successful bidders during 2015 and 2016.
SDA had the most controversial donations, reported as donations from 20 companies that concluded contracts with the organs of executive power. The total worth of tenders performed to select donors of SDA in 2015 and 2016 is more than BAM 28 million. One of the controversial donations is the one made by BIHAMK that registered one of its units as association of citizens, which is also an illegal source of income. BIHAMK donated to SDA in total BAM 9.000 through its different legal entities. Together with donations from BIHAMK, SDA reported a total amount of BAM 28.000 from donations from prohibited sources.
In 2016 HDZ 1990 and SDP received 5 disputable donations each, HDZ BiH, PDP and SBB received two each, and DF and DNS one donation each.
The amounts of donations from controversial sources reported by the parties are rather low, and usually not higher than BAM 5.000, but their accuracy is not guaranteed, since the Law on Political Party Financing leaves too many possibilities to parties to avoid reporting large part of their revenues – through receiving donations in cash and not paying them to the bank account of the party, through donations in commission that are usually not reported, and through redirecting funds via third parties. This is why it is very likely that the amounts the parties received from the prohibited sources are much higher.
In the report filed to CEC, TI BiH urged this institution to use all its competences and accordingly sanction the listed political parties.

Press rls 16.06.2017.e