Bosnia Federation Forms Fund to Handle Flood Relief

Three months after devastating floods hit Bosnia, the country's Federation entity on Tuesday finally set up a "Solidarity Fund", which is to act as the agency for the distribution of more than 2 million euro that the government has collected from donations.

The fund is to be the legal body through which the entity government will send help to people whose homes were destroyed by the May floods.

Nermin Niksic, the Prime Minister of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, said the fund would sort out a number of matters related to gathering further donations and distributing what has been obtained so far.

“We have to resolve the illusion that loads of money is lying in the fund and waiting to be used,” he said.

“There are a range of activities we have to do before that. Most of the money coming from the donors' conference [in July in Brussels] in fact is in credits, though some are also donations.”

In a statement to the news portal Vijesti.ba, Niksic recalled that the entity government had already handed some relief money to local authorities in flood-hit areas.

“Certain local communities already got a significant amount of money, but their mayors either don't know what to do with it, or are waiting to get all the money [they need] before starting reconstruction,” he added.

Unlike the Federation which has taken three months to establish the relief fund, the country's other entity, Republika Srpska, did so in mid-June, one month after the disaster.

The fund in Republika Srpska has so far distributed payment cards to households worth  around 2,500 euro each, which families can use to buy building materials or furniture.

The floods in May affected about a fifth of Bosnia...