February 27, 2001

DR. DRAGAN ČOVIĆ: ALL ACTIVITIES OF THE MINISTRY OF FINANCE HAVE BEEN TRANSPARENT FROM THE BEGINNING TO THE END

On the occasion of a series of information lately mentioning in a negative context the Government of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and him personally, the Deputy Prime Minister of the Federation BiH and the Federal Minister of Finance, Dr. Dragan Čović, at today's press conference held in Sarajevo, denied their verity and stated that he had asked from the Office of the High Representative the official information in that regard. Dr.Čović requests also a meeting with Wolfgang Petritsch who is in Germany these days.

- I am very disappointed with the fact that this information came from the OHR, the more so because after all previous meetings with the High Representative and his associates never had remained any open issue - said the Deputy Prime Minister of the Federation BiH.

In response to the concrete assertions contained in the OHR's communication, Dr. Čović stated that last year, through the Federal Ministry of Finance, there were transferred from the Budget of the F BiH totally around KM 960 million to the defined and direct beneficiaries, according to the projected items and complying with the Law on Budget Execution. Among drawdowns there were also those that in the first semester of 2000 had been transferred to the Fund for Assistance to the Families of Dead Veterans in Zenica.

- As far as the Federal Ministry of Finance is concerned, it was an extremely correct transfer, but what had happened with that money afterwards, that is, how and for what it had been spent, as a Minister of Finance I do not know, I can not know and I am not supposed to know. The mode of spending the funds is responsibility of the end beneficiary. In this case that is, of those empowered by the Fund to allocate the funds. If I was only to take care of what the final users are doing with money they get from the budget, I would be able to do nothing else. There are relevant institutions in this country which should be supervising the transparency of work of all the budget users - underlined Dr. Dragan Čović. He observed: - If we had only been able to address more assistance to the war sufferers. At the moment there are on my desk around 300 requests submitted by similar associations that are trying in these difficult times to facilitate their operations using the support from the Federal Budget.

He added that each decision made by the Ministry of Finance is completely transparent and verifiable. He stressed that this Ministry on the monthly basis forwards its activity reports to ten addresses. Among those are seven international institutions, inter alia, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund as well.

- Information regarding the Budget of the Federation BiH is available even on Internet - said Dr.Čović.

In regard of bringing his name in connection with the scandal concerning importation of 900 cars with the forged documents, Deputy Prime Minister and Federal Minister of Finance said:

- For the sake of truth I must inform the public that I had once signed the Decision enabling those who had been dispossessed of their cars, and based on their requests, provided that they would make payments of all charges to the Budget of the Federation, meaning the customs duties and taxes, to repossess their cars. Following the intervention made by the lawyers of the Customs Administration who had pointed out certain negligence, I had immediately called off that Decision. After that the Decision was adopted by the Government in a similar form. If my name in the information was mentioned in that context, then it should have been also reported in its entirety. In one sentence there was said that the Budget of the Federation would have been withheld for certain funds hadn't had someone annulled that Decision. Now I am saying, had that Decision been implemented, there would have been collected the funds for the Budget of the Federation, since there would have been paid the customs duties and taxes. It is a different issue what really was disputable, to what my attention was drawn, and that is the criminal accountability of those who had broken the law. It is a completely discrete legal issue having nothing to do with the Ministry of Finance, but exactly because my attention was drawn to such an act, as the Minister of Finance I had called off my decision. Regrettably, it has not been written anywhere now, but however, my name was mentioned and therefore someone may draw some conclusions.

What surprises Dr. Čović the most, according to his own words, is the fact that the Financial Police acting under the Federal Ministry of Finance, had pressed the criminal charges against him and that he, as the formal superior of the Financial Police, learnt about it from media.

- I will ask the institutions of the Federation to conduct a thorough investigation and inform the public about all facts. All I did, I did in compliance with the law and I am not trying to escape from my accountability. Should however there be proved that behind all this there are other motives, I will defend my rights by legal action as well - said Dr. Čović at his today's press conference.

Dr.Čović said that he had asked this morning the Financial Police to forward the Official Report on all conducted activities, and added:

- If there was anything what the Minister of Finance had done negligently, then it was his not meddling with the work of the Financial Police, Customs Administration, Tax Administration in terms of any kind of orders or directives, for any kind of action that had to be conducted on the field, except for the global one - that the law should be enforced.

According to Dr.Čović, he accepted to lead this Government on interim basis aiming to avoid any actions that could destabilize the territory of F BiH in the financial and any other terms.

- When we were assessing the financial side and economic stability, which are currently at the levels that we know, many doubted that the Budget of the Federation would ever reach the level it had reached. I would not know if someone is today disturbed by that, but I would like to underline that the last year's Budget of the Federation was implemented beyond the projections. We have projected the Budget of the Federation for the coming year to amount exceeding KM 1 billion, and you who used to monitor our work may recall in which directions went the positions of the IMF and of other institutions. If nobody found it necessary to say something good about what the Minister of Finance was doing lately when we are speaking of transformation and complete reform of the work in the Ministry of Finance, then I will say something I had never said in public. These days I heard many credits attributed to those who had managed to settle the monetary issues in BiH. I am claiming here that it would have never started to live if there was not for such Ministry of Finance, not to say for me personally. Some have harvested all the credits and merits on account of transformation of the Payment Bureau or cessation of the Payment Transactions System and transferring its operations to the commercial banks. I would like to assure you that it would have not been the January 1st, 2001 had not there been for this Ministry of Finance - emphasized Dr.Čović.

He added that he never wanted someone to stress it through media, but he also said that he personally would not allow to become a victim, as he said, of someone else's idleness or other possible political activities.

- Identically, I am not going to allow such victimization of all those who have worked with me over last two years: of some 70 employees of the Ministry of Finance, of my six Assistants, as well as of these three Directors of the Administrations, and of all those who have worked with me in the Government, all Ministers and Deputy Ministers. In my opinion they have all honestly, correctly and fairly done their job taking into account the conditions in which we were working. And you are aware that since the election campaign started, and these are some seven-eight months, this Government did not have absolutely any kind of support by any representative of the international community, neither by any international institution. Please, just compare the different standards applied to the Government of RS and to this Government. Under such circumstances we managed to stay on our feet and create stability to a certain extent when we are speaking of the area of the Federation BiH - said the Deputy Prime Minister.