28.03.2023. / 16:10
SARAJEVO – Last year, Bosnia and Herzegovina paid 6.3 million KM “penalty” for uncommitted funds of foreign creditors, they confirmed for CAPITAL in the Ministry of Finance and Treasury of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
PHOTO: Pixabay
For the sake of clarification, we are dealing with funds from foreign creditors that BiH has approved, but has not withdrawn (engaged). Because of this, Bosnia and Herzegovina was obliged to pay “penalties” to a number of creditors from whom it did not withdraw money.
There is currently no information on specific creditors from whom BiH did not withdraw funds last year, because this information has not yet been adopted by the BiH Council of Ministers, but the situation was similar in all previous years and BiH constantly paid millions of “penalties” for uncommitted funds.
Thus, the year before last, it paid 10.6 million marks for uncommitted funds of foreign creditors, and the most, as much as 9.5 million KM, was paid to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), with which it has the most significant amount of such loans.
In 2021, Bosnia and Herzegovina did not withdraw as much as 2.4 billion marks from foreign creditors, of which as much as 987 million marks are related to loans from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).
The largest number of funds that have not been withdrawn from the EBRD is for the Doboj Bypass Corridor Vc project, where KM 380.1 million was uncommitted.
Although on the basis of uncommitted funds of the European Investment Bank (EIB) BiH in 2021, they did not pay penalties and with this bank they had a huge unused amount of even 689.5 million marks.
BiH also had undrawn funds from the World Bank for Reconstruction and Development (WBIBRD) in the amount of 281.3 million KM, of which 144.8 million KM were not withdrawn by the FBiH, and 136.5 million KM by the Republika Srpska, and on that basis they paid almost 600,000 KM “penalty”.
Čavalić: Every “penalty” will be paid by the citizens
Economist Admir Čavalić for CAPITAL points out that this amount of undrawn funds is due to the inaction of certain authorities that should further invest the money received.
“Sometimes, due to certain timing, not all funds can be withdrawn, but within the region, Bosnia and Herzegovina is considered the most ineffective country in terms of managing its own finances, and that certainly includes credit funds. Every penalty will be paid by the taxpayers of this country and that is the biggest tragedy”said Cavalić
As a solution to this problem, Čavalic states that it is necessary that when the issue of credit debt comes to the Parliament of Bosnia and Herzegovina, certain deadlines should be immediately defined and specified and that those who do not respect the given deadlines should be sanctioned.
CAPITAL: Bojana Ninković
Source: Capital.ba – Informacija je capital by www.capital.ba.
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