Speaker of the Srpska parliament Nedeljko Cubrilovic claims that some people, for political reasons, need falsified population census results, which can in no way contribute to Bosnia and Herzegovina’s receiving a real picture after more than 25 years, of the potential it has in order to be able to move forward with economic and business reforms.
“Unfortunately, there was no appreciation for conversation or agreement on this matter. It turns out that what the director of the Srpska Institute of Statistics Radmila Cickovic warned about during a special session of the National Assembly regarding the population census was true, and that is that 196,000 of enumerated people are disputable,” Cubrilovic told Srna.
The speaker recalled that during the special session on June 21, the Srpska MPs came up with unanimous conclusions that Republika Srpska would neither recognise nor publish the census results.
“After Edin Sabanovic of the Agency for Statistics of Bosnia and Herzegovina admitted that the 2013 Census encompassed around 200,000 people who were not residents, i.e. those who shouldn’t have been enumerated because they don’t live in this country, it is clear that the National Assembly of Republika Srpska was right when it stated its opinion about this problem,” Cubrilovic pointed out.
He said: “So now, when it took months for everyone to admit it, attempts are made to bring down the percentage of error in the Census below the allowed limit by playing with numbers, even though the percentage of error is clearly way above it.”
According to the speaker, reaction about the many illogical things seen during the Census and data processing should have followed immediately.
“Investigative and judicial institutions should have checked the information a long time ago that census forms in some towns had been seen around 12 months before the census even began, and that people who were neither born here nor ever lived here were enumerated. That’s why the results regarding the number of the population are totally incorrect and unusable, which is why the goal and purpose of the Census has not been met,” said Cubrilovic, submitting that this did not concern Republika Srpska alone, and that the most graphic example in this respect was the City of Mostar.
He reiterated that the National Assembly passed the Law on Processing and Publishing of the Results of the 2013 Census of Population, Households and Dwellings in Republika Srpska on an urgent basis, which the Government had submitted to the parliament on an urgent basis in accordance with the previous conclusions of the parliament.
According to the Law, said Cubrilovic, the census results are to be published by the Srpska Institute of Statistics not later than six months of its entry into force.
“According to the stipulations of the proposed law, the Institute is obliged to submit a report to the National Assembly about the work and tasks conducted to carry out the census activities and publish the census results. The National Assembly will monitor the engagement and operations of the Institute of Statistics, which is supposed to publish the results for Republika Srpska, according to the Law, by the end of the year,” Cubrilovic said.
Pieter Everaers, Eurostat’s Director of Directorate A – Cooperation in the European Statistical System, stated Wednesday in Sarajevo that according to a general evaluation of the International Monitoring Operation, the results of the 2013 Census of Population, Households and Dwellings in BiH were valid and compliant with standards and could be used for planning the economic and social development.
Source: Srna
