Bosnia’s Republika Srpska Criticised Over Debts

The Centres of Civic Initiatives, CCI, a non-governmental organization which follows the work of governments, said in the new report that the Republika Srpska authorities' main problem was a lack of focus on the problems of citizens. 

"The goals are not set properly or the authorities were not focused on solving the living problems of their citizens," the CCI said on Wednesday in Banja Luka. 

A key criticism was about the entity's mounting debts caused by its increasing budget. 

"The budget of RS [Republika Srpska] doubled in only eight years - from 1.1 billion KM [half a billion euro] in 2006.. .to 2.1 billion KM [one billion euro] in 2014," the report said.

"The authorities in RS indebted their entity more intensively that the authorities in the Federation [Bosnia's other political entity]," the CCI said.

"Measured per capita, citizens of RS are 50 per cent more indebted than citizens of the Federation. In RS the debt per capita is 3,500 KM [1,790 euro]," it added.

The report also added that there were more unemployed and less employed citizens at the end of the term of the current Republika Srpska government than when it came to office in 2010.

"The number of pensioners also grew in this term and went higher than the number of people employed. The average salary rose 39 KM [20 euro] and pension 28 KM [14 euro]," it said, adding that the price of an average food basket grew around 90 euro over the period.

It said there were continued problems with the entity's judiciary.

"There were still flaws in terms of independence and lack of bias and political attacks on the judiciary," it said.