BiH authorities block anti-corruption reforms, more and more attempts to make matters worse

Sarajevo, December 9, 2021 – “Authorities at all levels in Bosnia and Herzegovina are blocking legislative reforms in seven areas that are key to fighting corruption, and there are increasing attempts to make the situation worse.” This is the main message of the conference organized by Transparency International in Bosnia and Herzegovina (TI BiH) on the occasion of 9. December of the International Anti-Corruption Day. TI BiH presented a report and a new online tool acmonitor.ti-bih.org that provides an overview of progress in implementing reforms and the effectiveness of the implementation of key anti-corruption laws.

The TI BiH report shows a complete lack of progress in the areas of corruption processing, judicial integrity, public procurement, financing of political parties, conflicts of interest, freedom of access to information and protection of whistleblowers. The implementation of key laws in these areas was also assessed as inefficient and deficient, and in some cases non-existent. Number of corruption charges in 2020 years has been halved, and only the judiciary is rocked by numerous scandals.

TI BiH has identified over 300 officials who are in a situation of direct conflict of interest, but instead of tightening sanctions, we are witnessing attempts to further reverse the laws in this area, as the current situation has been legalized. This was especially pointed out by the US Ambassador to BiH Eric Nelson, who criticized the intentions of the BiH Ministry of Justice to set back the law at the state level.

– Passing laws that do not bring anything positive is worse than not passing them at all. Politicians and officials continue to block the adoption and implementation of key anti-corruption laws. They are creating political crises to divert voters’ attention from the corruption they are involved in and so that they can continue to steal, said Nelson.

What is worrying is the increasing persecution of people who decide to report corruption, and the TI BiH report shows disastrous results in the implementation of laws that should protect whistleblowers. More than half of public bodies refuse to provide information within the legal deadlines, and there are more and more examples of ignoring court rulings. In the area of public procurement, we are witnessing millions of scandals involving politicians of the highest rank, but due to the inconsistency of other laws, very few of them have been prosecuted.

-Corruption hinders all aspects of society, the fight against corruption is a key part of our policy. The most developed democracies have a very low rate of corruption, said at the conference the Ambassador of Sweden to BiH Johanna Strömquist.

The TI BiH report shows that deficient laws allow for numerous election abuses, withdrawals from the budget and misuse of public resources for party purposes, and blockades of electoral reform reforms by key decision-makers are aimed solely at maintaining control over the election process.

– The key priorities for this country are holding elections in October 2022. years with as little corruption as possible and enabling citizens to freely express their will. Everything else would be a continuation of hopelessness, said Srdjan Blagovcanin, Chairman of the Board of TI BiH.

Proposals to improve the legal framework in all areas could be heard at the conference, but the key message is that all measures must be taken to prevent the blocked blockades of the election process and all other reforms necessary to fight corruption.

Press rls_09.12.2021