TI BIH published the Register of Public Officials in BIH: 61 officials perform double functions

In Bosnia and Herzegovina, 61 officials at the state, entity and cantonal levels currently hold additional positions in institutions, public institutions and public enterprises, and many of them are in direct or partial conflict of interest.

The Register of Public Officials presented today by Transparency International in BiH (TI BiH), which currently includes data on 763 office holders, shows that many of them hold two or three positions in the public sector where their private interests often intertwine with public ones. . These data clearly show the need to improve the law on conflict of interest, which is one of the 14 priorities of BiH on the European path.

Sarajevo, December 17, 2020 – In Bosnia and Herzegovina, 61 officials at the state, entity and cantonal levels currently hold additional positions in institutions, public institutions and public enterprises, and many of them are in direct or partial conflict of interest. Of all officials performing dual functions, 14 are both deputies and members of the government at various levels of government, and this should be prohibited by the recently adopted amendments to the BiH Election Law passed by the House of Representatives of the BiH PA. If this is confirmed in the House of Peoples, deputies will have to freeze their seats in assemblies until the end of their term in office, and this should apply to the current president and vice president of the Federation of BiH, who are also members of the FBiH Parliament.

In addition, five other members of the Parliament of the Federation of BiH are at the same time in the management of public companies and institutions, as well as one MP and one minister at the level of BiH. The FBiH Law on Conflict of Interest prohibits elected officials from performing functions in public companies at the same time, but as this law is not currently applied in the FBiH, there is no one to determine the incompatibility of functions.

In the current composition of the RS National Assembly, out of 83 deputies, 22 of them are currently part of the management of public institutions and public companies, and this number is changing rapidly due to frequent political turbulence. Out of that number, as many as 13 deputies are in the management structures of public companies, although the law forbids that, but the government has found a model according to which it goes unpunished. The mandates of the acting directors of public companies are extended indefinitely, because the competent Commission for Determining Conflicts of Interest persistently interprets the law in such a way that the acting director is not the same as the director in the sense of this law, although it is not stated anywhere.

Thus, for example. SNSD MP in the NARS Dražen Vrhovac is currently the acting director of the RS Investment and Development Bank, which directly submits its work reports to the RS National Assembly, where he is an MP. In addition to being the director of the RBI and an MP, Vrhovac, according to the Banja Luka Stock Exchange, is also a member of the supervisory board of HPK ad Kozarska Dubica, which has recently gone bankrupt and is majority owned by Republika Srpska. It should also be noted that several deputies in the NARS spent part of their mandate in a conflict of interest, and were relieved of their directorships solely for political reasons, and not for consistent law enforcement.

Existing laws allow MPs at all levels to head public institutions, although in many cases the assemblies of MPs adopt the budgets and reports of those same institutions. Many MPs run public companies at other levels of government, which the RS Conflict of Interest Commission does not violate, although many publicly use their influence in parliaments to trade positions in public companies. Through the monitoring of the election campaign, TI BiH has recorded numerous examples of misuse of resources of public companies and institutions for the election campaign of officials who are in the governing bodies, but there is no legal possibility to sanction this.

In addition to the state and entity, another 22 officials at the cantonal level perform additional functions, of which six are related to ministers in the technical mandate. Other officials are also members of management structures in public institutions and companies.

At the moment, a total of 25 elected officials are currently directors of public institutions and public companies, while 20 of them sit on management and supervisory boards.

Due to all this, TI BiH in the past period has on several occasions proposed changes to the law on conflict of interest at all levels in order to expand the circle of persons to whom it will apply and establish an independent commission to decide on conflicts of interest. The latest GRECO report on the implementation of recommendations in the field of prevention of corruption among members of parliament clearly emphasizes that BiH has not done anything since the last report, and that it has not made progress in improving regulations in the field of conflict of interest.

GRECO is still in the last report in 2018. welcomed the creation of the draft Law on Conflict of Interest in the Institutions of BiH, in the drafting of which TI BiH also participated, but this draft, although it has been in the procedure since 2017. years, has not yet been adopted. On the contrary, in the past period, through the proposals made by the ruling parties in the BiH Parliament and the proposals coming from the BiH Ministry of Justice, it has been shown that the current government aims to establish even lower standards in this area.

The “Register of Public Officials” was created as a result of the project ” Support to Citizens in the Fight against Corruption “. Financial support was provided by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and the project is being implemented together with the partner organization Centers for Civil Initiatives (CCI).

Press rls_17.12.2020_TIBIH published the Register of Public Officials in BiH