One of the reasons why BiH is considered to be a highly corrupt country whose population lives in poverty, despite large natural resources, a favorable geographical position in the heart of Europe and talented people, is the corrupt political system.
This system did not arise spontaneously, but is maintained on a very well-designed system of diverting public money into private pockets, and one of the most important channels for this flow of money is the public procurement system.
According to journalists who have been researching this topic for years, but also honest politicians who understand the problem for citizens that this system of corruption represents, public procurement is the very core and center of political corruption that practically generates personnel policy and directs the entire administration on how to maintain the existing system, instead of improving it in the public interest.
Denis Džidić, editor of Detektor, whose journalists have been engaged in exposing this corrupt system for years, agrees with the above statement, and adds that corrupt public procurements generate a selection of political cadres who then keep such a system alive.
“In such a system, there is a negative selection of politicians because those who refuse to participate in these networks are very quickly left without the support of party structures, financial channels or access to decision-making centers. The system begins to favor the obedient, not the capable. Even politicians who may not initially have the intention of participating in corrupt practices, face pressure from interest groups that finance campaigns, control part of the party infrastructure or have influence through public companies and tenders,” points out Džidić.
The analysis of Detektor’s texts, as well as other media that dealt with the problem of corruption in public procurement, clearly shows that the system of political corruption in Bosnia and Herzegovina is not at all accidental and it is not only about bad individual staff, but about a system that in the basic structure of functioning generates bad staff and discourages or makes senseless any initiative that could possibly lead to a different outcome.
Džidić states that Detektor has published documented and processed examples in which one and the same company wins millions of contracts, often with minimal competition or tender conditions adapted to previously known bidders.
“Such systems make politics dependent on extracting public money, because part of that money is returned through political support, campaigns or maintaining a loyalty network,” he emphasizes.
Why reforms are difficult to pass
Saša Magazinović, a member of the SDP in the BiH House of Representatives, is one of the few politicians who not only understands the cause of the problem, but also proposes concrete solutions to solve it. However, all attempts sooner or later hit a wall.
Magazinović points out in a concrete way how the system maintains the appearance of functioning normally, while in practice it directly contributes to the strengthening of corruption.
“There is an example where the director of a company gave a job worth over 200,000 marks to an acquaintance or friend without any public invitation. That case was reported and he was sentenced to a fine of 110 marks. Another example relates to the procurement of fuel. In violation of the appropriate rules of the Public Procurement Act, fuel worth over two million marks was procured. This was documented, reported and the person was fined 300 marks, and the company was also fined once that fine is paid, it is impossible to be punished for the same offense, which means that no one can be prosecuted”, explains Magazinović.
In order to try to put an end to these and similar abuses, Magazinović, in cooperation with the Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Agency for Public Procurement, proposed changes to the Criminal Code and the Law on Public Procurement. One of the changes relates to increasing the amount of fines paid, in order to prevent such examples where the law is knowingly broken and a symbolic fine is knowingly paid, and then to prevent the resumption of proceedings under the pretext that the same offense cannot be prosecuted twice. Both proposals were adopted in the House of Representatives, and a few days ago they appeared for the first time in the House of Peoples, where SNSD prevented their voting by leaving the session.
The price of corruption for citizens and institutions
Why such and similar rare initiatives rarely become laws and take root in practice, even though they are declaratively or symbolically adopted in institutions, it is completely clear to Magazinović – there is an interest of business and politics that the current system survives.
“This is precisely the reason why all the blackest people in this country, both on the business side and on the political side, united to stop these laws. Of course, it is unpopular to do this publicly and their opposition to the law was very little visible through several speeches by various experts. However, what is not visible, and what is happening, is the enormous advocacy and use of political and financial interests in order to influence the representatives to stop it,” claims Magazinović.
And Tanja Topić, a political analyst from Banja Luka, believes that abuse in the public procurement system is the very heart of political corruption.
“The second dimension is that corruption is generated through public procurement is the fact that very few cases of corruption are prosecuted in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Simply, such stories are known to the public through the investigative stories of certain media and journalists, the occasional audit report, while the judiciary turns its head away from them. This is the way in which individuals have become enormously rich, destroying any illusion about the rule of law, transferring enormous wealth to tax haven islands, and putting a deed on public assets, registering them as private property,” Topić points out.
The biggest challenge is that apparently everyone knows that public procurement is a big problem, but no one manages to find a way to stop this corrupt system.
Damage from corruption is not only measured in money
Džidić warns that the biggest damage is not material, but that institutions are collapsing.
“When political survival is linked to access to public procurement, politicians become less accountable to citizens, and more to power centers that control money flows. Then public functions no longer serve the public interest, but the preservation of the system from which political power is financed,” emphasizes Džidić.
Magazinović pointed out another big problem – how to sensitize the citizens that this is something that has an impact on their daily life. Namely, people often know that corruption exists, but they can hardly imagine it as something concrete, which affects their lives directly.
Magazinović says that when he speaks publicly about this topic, he tries to reduce the problem of abuse of public procurement to something that people can easily understand.
One way it illustrates this is the story surrounding the EU Growth Plan and the possible loss of two billion marks, which the country should gain if it implements European reforms.
“We already have the two billion available to us in our budget – only they don’t end up on projects that benefit the people of this country, but in private pockets, because there are estimates that a billion marks are stolen annually through public procurement,” he warns.
Magazinović says that he then tries to present this to people through how many schools, hospitals or playgrounds could be built if that money remained available to citizens, hoping that in this way citizens could be better sensitized to what abuses of public procurement represent.
However, even when it is clearly presented to people in a simple way, changes hardly happen.
“When I got deeper into that story, it became clear to me why nothing changes – because a lot of powerful people have a very big interest and willingness to do whatever needs to be done so that it doesn’t change,” he emphasizes.
Can the EU be the driver of change?
If what we heard from our interlocutors is correct, it becomes clear why reforms are slow. But there is hope that things could still move with the help of the EU.
Although there is resistance among the political elites, the majority of citizens still want BiH to become a member of the EU, and this can be a great chance. If the EU specifically conditions the country’s European path with specific reforms, the monopoly and power of those who maintain this system could be broken.
According to the latest report of the European Commission on BiH’s progress on the road to the EU, it can be clearly seen that problems with public procurement are a major source of corruption. Although the EU mostly uses bureaucratic vocabulary in its reports, it is easy to draw the conclusion that corruption in public procurement is a systemic problem.
For example, it is directly pointed out that more than half of all public tenders have only one bidder, and in as many as two thirds, the price was the only criterion for the award.
In addition, as Magazinović points out, there are still systemic measures that make it difficult or completely impossible for agencies and institutions to prevent abuses, because abuses are often part of the same system.
For example, the Report indicates that the capacities of the Public Procurement Agency are not sufficient to fulfill their basic mandate, and even when irregularities appear, the Report indicates problems in communication with the Competition Council and with audit and judicial institutions.
And EU reports point to a systemic problem in which the holders of economic power are connected to political structures and practically disable the state to protect the public interest, they write. Independent newspaper.
