Although Kupres RS is one of the smallest municipalities in Republika Srpska, the local government led by SNSD is dedicated to working on the most frequent irregularities. A municipality that does not have water supply in the 21st century, but residents are supplied with drinking water by collecting rainwater, the authorities in Republika Srpska remember only in the election campaign. Thus, in 2011, Milorad Dodik visited them and promised 350,000 KM for the construction of a water supply system. All that remained was the promise, and there has been nothing done in the matter of the water supply system to this day. We received an answer from the Ministry of Finance of the Republika Srpska that they did not participate in financing the construction of the water supply system in this municipality. So, there was never a serious intention of the Srpska authorities to build a water supply system.
In addition to the fact that the people of this poor municipality have been deceived by the entity authorities, there is a big problem in the very functioning of the local community. According to locals, party affiliation is a key factor in getting a job in municipal institutions and public companies. In Elektrokrajina, a department that covers the municipality of Kupres RS, a car mechanic works as an electrician, although there are residents who have also graduated from electrical engineering school. However, when hiring in this public company, competitions are not held at all, so things like this are possible. When asked by Elektrokrajina whether the information about the non-implementation of the competition when hiring workers in this municipality is correct, we did not receive any answer from this public company. It is an open secret that all employees in this public company are members of the ruling SNSD.
Also, several workers from the municipal administration of Kupres work in the Public Company Forests of RS, for whose employment a competition has never been announced. When we asked if this information was correct, from the Public Company Forests of RS, the department of the Forest Farm “Gorica”, the answer was that: “Competitions were not announced, because it is mostly about forest-breeding works, jobs at the reception and remittance of SDCs, therefore, about the execution of a specific job.” This confirms the allegations of our sources that competitions were not announced. All this creates a feeling among the citizens who live in this municipality, and do not belong to the ruling parties, that they are second-class citizens. Also, what hurts them the most is the fact that many employees in these jobs do not live in the municipality itself, but travel from other municipalities, while on the other hand in Kupres RS there are people who have the necessary qualifications to work in public companies, but they can not get a job.
That this is indeed the case was confirmed to us by the PE “Forests of RS”, a branch of SHG “Gorica” in the answer they sent us.
“Forest workers provide two meals to workers who live in workers’ housing, if a kitchen for preparing food is organized, and if there is no organized kitchen, workers are provided with one dry meal and paid compensation in the amount of one hot meal for each working day. If there is no organized own transport with the employer, the workers have the right to reimbursement of the costs of transport in public transport “, they state from Gorica.
So, party affiliation has led to the fact that public companies themselves have an additional cost because they pay for transportation and double hot meals.
A special story takes place in the municipality itself, where the mayor is Gojko Šebez from the SNSD, who according to locals has no place of residence in this municipality, because he has a family house in the municipality of Kupres in the Federation of BiH, as well as a family house in Banja Luka, where he usually resides. The RS Ministry of the Interior, when asked if the mayor has a registered address in the municipality of Kupres RS, received an answer that this information contains personal data and that this request for access to information was rejected. However, even if the mayor has a registered place of residence in the RS municipality of Kupres, he, according to local councillor Milan Milišić, mostly lives in Banja Luka. We did not receive any answer to the inquiries of the mayor himself.
In the municipality of Kupres RS, a special problem is the fact that some employees in the municipal administration perform several jobs with appropriate compensation for those jobs, so Dragan Čolić, who has graduated from agricultural school, is employed as a registrar. In addition to this basic position in the municipal administration, he also performs the duties of the President of the Municipal Red Cross, President of the Municipal Tender Commission, member of the Municipal Election Commission, Acting Director of the Municipal Company that provides snow removal services since 2017, advisor to the Mayor services and legal advisor, organizer of sports events as well as the head of the winter cleaning service in the municipality.
The mayor transferred Zoran Zubić, an intern from the RS Post Office, to the municipal administration, who received a salary for a year, but did not show up for work because she was employed only ten days before giving birth. In this case, the Law on Conflict of Interest was also violated because she is also a councillor in the municipal assembly in front of the SNSD. Also, the mayor brings her sister, Danijela Kovačić to the position of accountant in the municipality, in addition to the fact that an accountant who retired was kept in that position on certain contracts. In addition to all this, the municipality is contracting an additional fee for the accounting job with the director of Elektrodistribucija from Šipovo, Biljana Šegrt. Nepotism does not end here, because Danijela Kovačić, just like her sister Zorana, is in a conflict of interest because she is also a councillor in the Municipal Assembly in front of the SNSD. The president of the Municipal Assembly, Maja Šebez, is being hired to take the vacant post, and of course, you guessed it, again without competition. We did not receive an answer to the inquiry about this employment from the RS Post.
As this is an underdeveloped municipality in which the main source of income is agriculture, embezzlement was committed during donations by the RS Government. Thus, with the help of the Chinese government for agriculture, a tractor with attachments worth about 40,000 KM ended up with Srđa Zubić, a man who is not engaged in agriculture at all. Also, the mother of Goran Zubić, Assistant Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management of RS, Đuka Zubić, a 72-year-old woman, received a motor cultivator with attachments to grow organic potatoes. The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management did not answer our questions about the manner and criteria for the distribution of funds in the municipality of Kupres RS, as well as about the possible control over how these allocated funds are spent.
Large remittances to this municipality also came from the RS Ministry for Refugees and Displaced Persons. The municipal administration has indiscriminately spent these funds in the previous period because 60,000 KM received from this ministry in 2013, at the suggestion of the then-mayor, redirected to the construction of the Hunting House “Kupres River”, instead of sustainable stay and survival of residents in this municipality. This ministry did not answer our inquiries about how the funds intended for the municipality of Kupres RS are spent and whether they control the spending of allocated funds.
That the government in this municipality is almost completely powerless is also shown by the fact that the mayor had a proposal to spend 10% of the total municipal budget without a clear explanation. Namely, in the proposal of the budget rebalance, there was an item of 40,000 KM entitled “Other tk. grant in the country – current grant to individuals “. According to our source, this proposal was intended for distribution to politically eligible individuals, and what should be the subject of judicial institutions is that the money has already been spent! However, this proposal was not adopted by the municipal assembly.
Since no one from the municipality answered our inquiries, our journalists personally visited the municipal administration of this miniature municipality, but we were told that the mayor had not come to work since the previous week. When we asked the officers if the deputy mayor could give us an answer to the questions, we got a comment that it is better to contact the mayor.
In a statement for our portal, municipal councillor Milan Milišić says that there is complete anarchy and injustice in the local community.
“In this municipality, there is no place for a fighter of the first category, who is one of the few who stayed here with his family, wife and two children. Despite finishing the electrical engineering high school and passing the forestry-technical school, there is no place for me in Elektrodistribucija or in the Forests of RS, because I am not politically eligible. As far as I know, they have never announced competitions in these companies in Kupres RS, they are just accepting their people. “A man with four children lives in the municipality, the oldest of whom is 14 years old, and he does not have the right to employment or to make his way home, all because he does not support the ruling political parties,” Milišić said.
Writes: Velizar Antić and Stefan Blagić
