The Ombudsman for Human Rights ordered the Administrative Inspection of Republika Srpska to respond to the request from Transparency International in BiH (TI BIH) and conduct an inspection supervision in the Ministry of Labor and War Veterans Protection of RS, which refuses to publish data on funding of associations of public interest.
TI BIH requested information from this Ministry about which associations receive and how they spend over 700,000 KM annually that is distributed based on public calls. This information is particularly significant because an audit determined that the Ministry approved grants to associations that had misused these funds in previous years. This mainly concerns numerous veterans’ associations whose representatives, according to audit findings, spent budget funds on salary payments and material costs, rather than for the implementation of program activities and specific projects for which the grants were approved.
TI BIH requested this information last year, but the Ministry repeatedly refused to provide it and in doing so violated a number of provisions of the Law on General Administrative Procedure. TI BIH requested the Administrative Inspection of RS to respond, but they declared themselves incompetent, stating that “supervision over the application of the Law on Freedom of Access to Information is not placed under the exclusive jurisdiction of the administrative inspection“. Due to serious breach of duty by the acting inspector who made such a decision, TI BIH submitted a request to initiate disciplinary proceedings as well as an appeal to the Ombudsman for Human Rights of BiH.
The request to initiate disciplinary proceedings has not yet been decided upon, but the Ombudsman Institution issued an important recommendation that citizens could refer to in the future in case they are denied information of public interest. The Ombudsman emphasized in the recommendation that inspectors should apply their powers during inspection supervision relating to the application of the Law on Freedom of Access to Information. They also stated that the decision on a request for access to information is undoubtedly an administrative act and that the Law on Freedom of Access to Information is a special administrative procedure and falls under the control of the Administrative Inspection, which is obligated to conduct supervision.
Due to the non-delivery of this information, TI BIH also filed a lawsuit against the Ministry before the District Court in Banja Luka, but due to the slowness of judicial decision-making in such cases, which on average takes about two years, the inspection’s response could significantly accelerate the delivery of this data.
TI BIH requested information about granted funds to associations and foundations from all levels of government in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the Ministry of Labor and War Veterans Protection of RS is the largest provider of these grants that refused to provide the data.
Sve podatke koje je TI BiH dobio objavljeni su u bazi nvo.transparentno.ba a njihovim poređenjem utvrđeno je da se brojni javni funkcioneri istovremeno nalaze na čelu udruženja koja dobijaju sredstva iz budžeta. TI BiH je do sada identifikovao 47 takvih funkcionera u BiH, a dio njih potencijalno se nalazi u sukobu interesa. Pored toga, podaci TI BiH pokazuju da je u posljednja dva izborna ciklusa preko 800 kandidata bilo na čelu udruženja koja su dobijala javna sredstva.
