In the past five years, at least 383 million marks have been spent in BiH on financing 12,200 associations, according to data from the Grant Registry of Transparency International in BiH, which collected data from all levels of government. As much as 64 million BAM was received by associations that can be directly linked to political parties, as the leaders of 1,807 associations were on candidate lists in the last three electoral cycles.
This data is not even complete, as 27 municipalities, cities, entity and cantonal ministries did not provide information, and there is an increasingly present trend of profitable public enterprises distributing large amounts of money to associations.
TI BiH compared data on associations that received public funds with the Registry of Officials and identified 344 associations whose responsible persons hold public office, and 16 million BAM was spent on their financing in the previous five years. Of this, 83 associations are led by managers (directors and supervisory board members) of public enterprises, while 184 associations are headed by managers of public institutions. There are also 77 associations led by elected and appointed persons, i.e., those holding political functions.
Abuse and Conflict of Interest
Public money is distributed in most cases without any criteria and public call, as auditors point out year after year at all levels, and this problem is recognized in anti-corruption strategies.
On the other hand, budget funds are abused for financing favorable associations or even electoral campaign costs. TI BiH has in the past period filed complaints against association leaders who were in direct conflict of interest, as they simultaneously held public office, but there was no adequate response.
After the complaint against former advisor to the President of Republika Srpska Milan Tegletija, the RS authorities promptly amended the law and legalized conflict of interest in financing non-governmental organizations from the budget. This enabled all officials to have their NGOs and receive unlimited amounts of public funds, if they do not receive salary for work in the association. We remind that the purpose of this law was to prevent officials from distributing budget money to their own associations and private companies, so the occurrence of conflict of interest should not have been reduced to receiving salary, which caused immeasurable damage.
Additionally, auditors in RS determined that funds are approved to associations that misused them, but despite several court rulings in favor of TI BiH and the Ombudsman’s reaction, the relevant ministry in the RS Government continues to hide this information.
Also, in the Federation of BiH, there has been no competent commission deciding on conflict of interest since 2013, while institutions that allocate public funds completely ignore the existence of the law and the fact that associations led by public officials are prohibited from receiving more than 10,000 BAM annually, or 50,000 for associations in the fields of culture and sports.
Brčko District Allocates the most Money
Most money is distributed at the local and cantonal level, but entity governments also distributed significant amounts in the previous period.
Compared to budget size, the Government of Brčko District distributes by far the largest percentage, allocating 16.8 million BAM annually for NGO financing. The District was shaken by numerous scandals regarding the distribution of this money in the mentioned period, but the authorities later made significant reform by adopting an improved conflict of interest law.
Also, the amount of funds for financing associations increases year by year, and the only decline was recorded in 2020 when significantly less public revenue was collected due to COVID.
This data sufficiently demonstrates the degree of political control over budget financing of the civil sector. Funds are distributed to associations that often do not even have websites, do not publish work reports, nor disclose the purposes for which they spend public funds.
On the other hand, with a new law, the authorities in Republika Srpska intend to restrict the work of unfavorable associations and label them “foreign agents” if they are financed from European or other funds. The same authorities use these very funds and through this law attempt, under the guise of transparency, to restrict the work of unfavorable associations, while there is not even a minimum of transparency in financing “government non-governmental organizations”.
