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Bosnian Serb Govt Spending Cuts ‘Alarming’
18 November 2008 Sarajevo _ Trade unions and experts have rebuffed plans by the government of Bosnia’s Serb-dominated entity of Republika Srpska on reducing its budget costs.
This public criticism, carried by local media on Tuesday, is aimed against a set of measures which was announced by the Republika Srpska government last week. As a part of the plan, the government cut salaries of its ministers, their deputies and advisors by 10 percent and ordered a halt to recruitment into the administration.
Yet the Presidency of the Republika Srpska Trade Union rebuffed the government’s plan, saying it was put together without their participation and could result in workers being fired from public companies. They called upon entity government to urgently organise a meeting with all key trade unions and employers’ associations, in order to agree on further economic and social measures that would protect workers in light of the worsening global economic crisis.
One of the leading economic experts in Republika Srpska, Damir Miljevic, also criticised the government’s plan for savings in 2009, calling it “political demagogy.”
Miljevic said that over the past two years the Republika Srpska government has increased its salaries by over 100 percent and a 10 percent cut is irrelevant in that light. He added that the announced cut will save only 1.5 million Konvertible Marks (€750,000) in 2009, which will be nullified by the fact that the draft budget for next year envisages an overall increase of public spending by 6 percent.
“Now we all see that Bosnia and Herzegovina, including Republika Srpska, is heading into an economic recession,” he said.
Contrary to the criticism in its own entity, the measures of the Republika Srpska government have been welcomed by some media in the other entity of the Bosnian Muslim (Bosniak) – Croat Federation, which said that the Federal government is even less active in light of the worsening economic conditions in the country.
Contributed by Balkaninsight
