Bosnia’s lawmakers finally adopted the 2020 state budget on Tuesday, enabling the local election to be held in November.
The House of Peoples adopted the budget proposal put together by the Presidency that was forwarded from the House of Representatives, which adopted it last week.
The budget will allow the November local vote to take place, which is why international officials have repeatedly urged Bosnian political leaders to adopt it. The 2020 local election has already been postponed from October 4 to November 15 because of the lack of a state budget.
There were 14 of 15 representatives present at the House of Peoples vote on Tuesday, and the proposal was passed with 13 votes. The leader of the HDZ BiH was not present since he recently tested positive for the coronavirus.
The budget proposal became a matter of political bickering between the ruling parties in the country. It was initially rejected by the House of Representatives on July 9th as representatives of the Serb ruling party, the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD), and those from Bosnia’s Croat Democratic Union (HDZ BiH) were against it.
The total revenues, receipts and financing of Bosnia’s institutions in 2020 amounts to 996 million Bosnian Marks, which is the same as the total expenditures. The 2020 budget is higher than the one of 2019 by 30 million Bosnian Marks, or three percent. External debt servicing amounts to 807,552,931 Bosnian Marks and is lower by 18.2 million Bosnian Marks compared to the previous year.
Source: N1.ba
