Conflict of Interest Appointment: Alen Zulić Became Director Without Competition and Outside the Law

Alen Zulić, a councilor in the City Council of Bihać, was appointed as the acting director of the public company National Park “Una” without a public competition and in open violation of the law.

Although the Law on Conflict of Interest in Government Bodies of FBiH is clear and does not allow elected officials to be appointed to management or to the position of authorized person in a public company, the Government of the Federation of BiH at a session in April this year gave consent to the decision of the Supervisory Board of JP National Park “Una” from Bihać to appoint Alen Zulić, a city councilor in Bihać, to the position of acting director of this public company.

As this is an appointment to incompatible positions, which is impossible to report because there is still no body responsible for conflicts of interest in the Federation of BiH, TI BiH immediately after learning of this contacted the FBiH Government requesting that the supervisory board comment on this decision. The response states that the members of the supervisory board “did not have information that he does not meet the formal-legal conditions because no competition procedure is conducted for the appointment of an acting director” and that the appointee (Zulić) was immediately informed upon assuming the position of acting director about the provisions of the Law on Conflict of Interest and the incompatibility of functions he was performing at that moment.

TI BiH also contacted the management of Una National Park with a request to explain the appointment of a person to obviously incompatible positions, to which this company stated that the supervisory board, when making the appointment, took into account formal legal conditions, and that when appointing to the position of acting director, general and special conditions for the selection of a director are not considered.

Such an interpretation sets a dangerous precedent as it leads to the conclusion that anyone can be appointed as an acting director, regardless of the conditions prescribed by law. Moreover, there is no legal provision that provides a basis for such an approach because formally and in practice, acting directors have identical powers as directors of public companies who are appointed in “full capacity”.

TI BiH also contacted the City Council of Bihać regarding this case, inquiring whether Alen Zulić had informed the Central Election Commission of BiH (CEC) and the local parliament when he was appointed to the position of director of the public company.

The response states that Zulić provided information about his appointment to the chairman of the city council on June 28, 2024, two months after the appointment, and that the CEC accepted the termination of his mandate in the City Council of Bihać.

However, this did not resolve the problem of the controversial appointment, since the Law on Conflict of Interest does not allow elected officials to be appointed to the management of public companies for six months after the expiration of their mandate. Thus, Alen Zulić was in a conflict of interest not only when he became the acting director, but also at the moment when he returned his mandate in the city council, as the necessary six months had not passed for his appointment to be considered legally acceptable.

Such situations are a consequence of the fact that since 2013, in the Federation of BiH, no body responsible for dealing with conflicts of interest of public officials has been established or determined, which institutions have interpreted as an open space for illegal appointments, and the conflict of interest of officials practically cannot be sanctioned.

Despite loud announcements that the practice of appointments to incompatible positions would be stopped, and work would be done to combat conflicts of interest, the current government in FBiH, soon after the formation of the Government, withdrew all laws from parliamentary procedure, including the one on conflict of interest, which was never returned or adopted, although this area falls into one of the key priorities that the EU has set for BiH.