Prime Minister of the Republic of Srpska Radovan Višković stated that the Government of the Republic of Srpska approved today at its 122nd session, a set of laws that would enable increase of salaries for all workers in the Republic of Srpska that would require 70 million BAM to be allocated from the budget.
After the Government session, Prime Minister Radovan Višković emphasized that the laws on salaries of employees in the sectors of health care, higher education, primary and secondary education, culture, the Ministry of the Interior and the judiciary were in the forefront excluding the salaries of judges and prosecutors.
“Apart from these laws, the Draft Law on Amendments to the Law on Income Tax and the Draft Law on Amendments to the Law on Contributions were passed. The Government also made a decision that the minimum wage in Republic of Srpska would be BAM 540”, the Prime Minister said at the press conference after the session.
Prime Minister Višković pointed out that the Government would forward a set of eight laws approved during today’s session to the National Assembly of the Republic of Srpska today so that necessary procedure could be applied and those laws published in Official Gazette by the end of May and become effective with June salary.
“Through this set of laws, the Government is giving up 70 million which will be transposed into a salary increase in Republic of Srpska. Thanks to the increase of the non-taxable part of salary from 500 to 700 BAM, salaries of all workers in Republic of Srpska will be increased”, Prime Minister said and added that as the result of these laws salaries in health care will be increased by up to eight percent.
“Thus, salaries of BAM 800 will be increased by 8.1 percent or 65 KM, for a salary of 1,000 BAM, the increase is 7.7 percent or 77 BAM, for a salary of 1,500 BAM, the increase is 107 BAM, and for a salary of 2,000 BAM, an increase is 137 and for a salary above 2,500 BAM, the increase is 197 KM “, said the Prime Minister Radovan Višković.
As Prime Minister said, the managing staff in health care institutions will have a three percent increase in order to direct more funds to those with the lowest salaries. He underlined that another unjust regulation in the field of health care had been corrected so that shifts works and overtime would be paid equally as the regular work unlike up to now when it was paid less.
He explained that a 3.5 percent increase in salaries in the health sector would require 3.5 million BAM more funds in the budget.
“You can then calculate what it means to increase salaries by five, seven or ten percent. We will compensate for the decrease in budget revenues of the mentioned 70 million by the growth of revenues in 2021”, Prime Minister of Republic of Srpska said and added that direct taxes for the first three months of this year grew by 18 percent, indirect taxes recorded slight decrease since the beginning of the year but were rising in April.
“We will now change the legal solution related to the amount of working hours that workers can be reported but contributions would have to be paid in accordance with the minimum wage”, the Prime Minister emphasized and assessed that this will benefit the workers and at the same time 20 million more will be paid into the budget than now.
He emphasized that the minimum wage in Republic of Srpska as of June will be 540 BAM or 276 euros while in Federation of BiH it is 208 euros, in Serbia 272 euros, in Montenegro 222 euros and in Northern Macedonia 247 euros”, Prime Minister said and added that the average net salary in Republic of Srpska in April was 998 BAM which is higher than in the Federation of BiH and GDP recorded a growth in the first quarter of this year.
According to the Prime Minister, this is happening because the Government reacted on time and thanks to numerous measures, saved the economy and maintained employment in the Republic of Srpska and supported this fact by figures on employment saying that from March 10 last year to May 17 this year, the number of newly employed persons was 3,244 higher than the number of those who lost their jobs.
Source: vladars.net
