Nezavisne novine: The Council of Ministers of BiH has yesterday confirmed the Draft budget of the Institutions of BiH for the next year in a sum of 1.4 billion KM, which is an increase by 237 million KM in relation to this year.
Preparations for population census are starting
The Council of Ministers has at the special session directed the Agency for Statistics of BiH to start the preparations for population and apartment census in 2011, and propose the content of working group for creation of the Law on Census. The Council of Ministers has also adopted the conclusions by which the census from 1991 is being applied to 2014 as the basis for national representation in all institutions, and that the Ministry for Human Rights and Refugees of BiH needs to prepare the program of returning in a period from 2009 to 2014, in cooperation with the entity ministries.
"1.055.589.000 KM has been planned for financing the Institutions of BiH, which is the increase by 117 million KM in relation to this year. With this budget, the European path of BiH will not be endangered, nor there will be some restrictions on that path", has been said by Nikola Špirić, chairman of the Council of Ministers.
By the confirmed draft budget, separating around 384 million KM has been predicted for payment of the external debt, which is an increase by about 122 million KM in relation to the last year. Špirić has yesterday said that the most money will be separated for work of the ministries of defense and security, because from the budget lots for these ministries, the Armed forces of BiH and security agencies are being financed.
"We have increased seclusions for the Ministry of Defense, but I am not sure that it will be enough for the reform of defense to go as fast as we want", Špirić has said.
He added that the Commission for the state property is responsible to prepare the Law on State Property in the next twenty days, with the suggestion that the property gets divided on the basis of the territorial-functional principle.
"This means that the property necessary for function of its institutions, will fall to the state, and the rest will be divided by the entities, cantons, towns and municipalities", Špirić has added.
By adopting these decisions the Council of Ministers has started to realize the agreement of the leaders of the Social Democratic Party, the Party of Independent Social Democrats and the Croatian Democratic Coalition of BiH reached in Odžak. Safet Halilović, Minister of Human Rights and Refugees from the Party for BiH, has voted against these decisions.
At the regular session, the Council of Ministers has adopted the strategy in the area of immigrations, and the basis for leading negotiations on concluding 43.5 million USD worth loan between BiH and the International Development Agency. Money from this credit will be spent for coordinating the communal garbage. It has also been concluded that the involvement of the soldiers from BiH in a peace-keeping mission in Afghanistan, has been justified, and this decision has been submitted on confirmation to the Presidency of BiH.