This was pointed out by a member of the House of Representatives of the Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina (PSBiH), Šemsudin Mehmedović, today at a press conference in Sarajevo, speaking on the topic entitled “Official vehicles in the institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina – questionable use 24 hours a day”.

– These are ministers and directors of institutions, their deputies and assistants, heads of cabinets, secretaries of ministries… Unfortunately, 149 vehicles is not the final number, because I have received 68 answers to the questions I sent to 73 addresses so far – said Mehmedović, noting that the institutions they also own other vehicles that they use for official purposes.

He specified that the focus is on vehicles that are available 24 hours a day, that is, 365 days a year, the use of which is widely abused, and the costs of which are paid by all citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

– Tens of millions of KM of budget money are spent on the purchase of expensive vehicles, including the costs of comprehensive insurance, fuel, parking, registration, servicing… This is unprecedented arrogance, recklessness and social insensitivity of those responsible for public money, the state and citizens – warns Mehmedović.

At the same time, he points out that there is no reason for any manager in BiH to have a vehicle available 24 hours a day, except for protected persons, and since the entire work process in most institutions takes place in one building.

He considers it absurd that the use of the official vehicle is continuously approved 24 hours a day by the head of the institution by a special act, which means that the head of the institution approves the use of the vehicle for himself, without any approval from the control body that appointed him, and for others without any criteria.

– Let the public be aware of the fact that the officials, 149 of them, will continue to drive luxury official vehicles for private purposes as well – to vacations, annual vacations in the country and abroad, then to weddings, festivals, election campaigns, and in the media these days we can read that they family members of certain officials also drive – emphasizes Mehmedović, referring to various forms of abuse, that is, as he said, “pure political corruption”.

In this context, he reminded of numerous negative examples, including the increasingly frequent occurrence of overtime payments to personal drivers employed by officials, for which PSBiH alone paid out about 100,000 KM for this purpose in the past four years.

That there are also positive examples is evidenced by data on 15 state institutions that Mehmedović says act responsibly and morally, singling out the example of the Central Bank of Bosnia and Herzegovina where no appointed person has an official vehicle available 24 hours a day, as well as the example of the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina , which share a similar practice.

According to him, PSBiH does not conduct parliamentary supervision in that segment, and the Office for the Audit of BiH Institutions has never questioned the use of official vehicles 24 hours a day.

– Therefore, once again I am asking the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina to immediately repeal paragraph (6) of Article 6 of the Rulebook on the conditions for the procurement and use of official vehicles in the institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina, i.e. the sentence: “The use of an official vehicle continuously during 24 hours a day by the head of the institution approved by a special act”. Also, I request that the official vehicles of BiH institutions be used only and exclusively for official purposes in the future, and that the VMBiH establish a clear criterion for who, in accordance with official authorizations, has the right to use an official vehicle 24 hours a day – said Mehmedović.

At the same time, he requested that the BiH Council of Ministers immediately divert tens of millions of KM of budget money, as much as is intended for that item (the use of official vehicles), to other justified purposes, reminding that, among other things, he requested from the VMBiH that monthly reimbursement of expenses accommodation for soldiers, members of the Armed Forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina, equated with compensation for officers “in order to stop the previous discrimination of soldiers”.

He illustrated these statements with data on how, according to the current Decision, a soldier has four times less accommodation allowance than a general, suggesting that allocations for soldiers should be prioritized over meaningless allocations for official vehicles 24 hours a day.