Nezavisne novine: The House of Representatives of the Parliament of the FBiH has yesterday adjourned voting on changes of the Law on Social Protection by which around 100.00 persons would remain without disability allowances.
In discussion which has lasted almost six hours, the delegates have supported the efforts of the FBiH Government to reduce giving for this category which has from the estimated 20.000 grown to almost 140.000 users, but they have asked for more sensibility towards the vulnerable categories and a different chronology of moves.
It has been proposed to firstly arrange the rulebook and do the audit, and after that withdraw the rights. The Government of the FBiH should until Tuesday analyze the proposed amendments and conclusions.
"There are two ways to get out of situation in which we are right now. One is that you do not adopt the law and that we reduce the coefficient for disability allowances to 0.5, which would by the end of the year be 0.1, or that you adopt the law and we stop accumulation of obligations. The Government of the FBiH does not have the capacities to implement the audit of all 130.000 people who have now been introduced in rights or have submitted the request", has been said by the Prime Minister of the FBiH, Nedžad Branković.
By the proposed changes of the law, which have been earlier adopted by the House of Peoples, the right on disability allowances has been abolished to all persons with disability lower than 90%.
The delegates have asked departmental ministry to immediately create an unified database of users, in order for changes not to withhold the rights of children born with disability higher than 60%, and that they can keep this right until the age of 26 or until the completion of their education. They have also proposed the adoption of three new laws: on disabled, on civil war victims and on family with children.
The representative of the Socio Democratic Action, Ibrahim Nadarević has said that 50% of users of disability allowances currently have some other incomes as well.
"By these changes, a child which is totally deaf or a child which loses his/her leg due to a traffic accident on the way to school, cannot receive the assistance from the state", Nadarević has said and graded that a more human solution would be the introduction of property census, which the House of Peoples did not want to consider.
He has accused the Ministry for Social Policy of FBiH that it did not do anything in order for the non-war disabled to receive their rulebook for evaluation of disability, so the rulebook for the war-veteran-disabled has been used.
The representative of the Party for BiH, Omer Vatrić thinks that by these changes the Government of the FBiH does not show serious intentions to implement the reform, but that the number of users should also be reduced to less than 30.000.
He believes that there are many cases of misuses, "surely 60.000''."The Government of the FBiH, instead of withdrawing from the right all the false war and non-war disabled, it started the reform where the tiniest is", has been said by the representative Marko Vešović.
Disabled have been waiting before the door
Bigger group of disabled, among which were mostly deaf-mute persons, has entered yesterday the building of "Unitic" with a wish to be present at the session of the Parliament of the FBiH, which has been held in this building. The police have stopped them from entering the big hall in which the session was. There was no use of force, but some tough words and accusations have been exchanged. As a compromising solution, the House has decided that several representatives of associations attend the session, but without individual references, by explaining that there is a big number of associations.
Marko Vujović from the National party "Radom za boljitak" (Through work towards the good) has asked the Government of the FBiH to create the programs for employment of disabled persons, and Nermin Nikšić from the Socio Democratic Party has said that a reliable database of users should firstly be created, by excluding the cases of misuse.
"The non-war disabled should not be collateral damage of moderating the consequences of economic crisis", Nikšić has said.
He has said that the 100% deaf person has 70% of disability and a remuneration of total 59 KM, and that some persons with valuable property for which they pay the tax, have the remuneration for treatment by someone else.
Ombudsmen of BiH worried
The ombudsmen of BiH have asked the Parliament of the FBiH to adjourn the adoption of this law as long as all needed consultations have been implemented, in order for the balanced solution without discrimination to be ensured. The ombudsmen have graded that the proposed solutions will not remove the existing disadvantages, and have expressed their worry because of the quickness of adopting this law.