Dysfunctions
Bosnia: Corruption Watchdog Under Fire
By Anes Alic, ISN 16/07/08
Jul 17, 2008 - 7:51:36 AM

Transparency International (TI) on 10 July announced it would temporarily close its offices in Bosnia's Serb-dominated Republika Srpska, saying the lives of the anti-corruption watchdog's staff were at risk. The closure comes after back-and-forth accusations between Bosnian Serb officials, who accuse the organization of corruption, and TI representatives there, who accuse Bosnian Serb officials of orchestrating their demise.

TI says there are clear indications that it is being purposely discredited by the local government through a detailed plan contrived some six months ago.

On 1 July, several Bosnian Serb media outlets (all of them known for their staunch support of the government of Prime Minister Milorad Dodik) published reports saying that two unidentified representatives from TI's Bosnian branch, headquartered in Republika Srpska's largest city, Banja Luka, as well as one employee of the Bosnian Indirect Taxation Agency, had been involved in the racketeering of local businessmen.

The allegations were brought for the media by a "protected witness" who gave the same statement to the Republika Srpska police.

The press in Banja Luka reported that the corruption allegations were currently being investigated by the Bosnian Prosecutor's Office, even though at that time the Office denied the claim, saying it had not received any such information from Republika Srpska police.

A representative of the Indirect Taxation Agency was allegedly providing the financial information of the "victims," the media reports said. They also reported that Bosnian TI staff had been blackmailing Bosnian Serb businessmen to the tune of thousands of euros each in order to keep them off US and EU "blacklists."

Bosnian Serb media has published a series of articles since early July saying that TI representative Ljubinko Lekovic had sought bribes of €4,000-20,000 (US$6,300-31,800) from officials who wished to be kept off the blacklists.

These so-called blacklists contain some 60 Republika Srpska politicians and businessmen banned from entering the US or the EU since 2005 for suspected involvement in war crimes or organized crime.

The Bosnian TI branch has categorically denied the accusations and has indicated it will take the local media to court over the matter. According to TI, the media onslaught against its offices was little more than a continuation of Republika Srpska Prime Minister Milorad Dodik's policy of pressuring his critics.
Stifling the critics the easy way?

"The background of these attacks is our achievements in the past year after investigating cases of the privatization of larger companies conducted under very suspicious circumstances," Srdjan Blagovcanin, TI Bosnia executive director, told ISN Security Watch.

"We were told we were going to suffer the consequences if we did not stop investigating privatization and business deals in Republika Srpska," he said.

According to Blagovcanin, Bosnian Serb officials offered TI bribes (in the form of "generous donations") if the watchdog would stop investigating corruption cases in Republika Srpska and would instead focus on the country's Federation entity.

However, the TI Bosnia executive director said, "we saved our integrity and this is the price we are now paying," referring to the latest accusations that have led to the temporary closure of the offices in Banja Luka.

"What is happening now is [that] the people who we pointed out in our corruption reports, those who generated the corruption, are taking revenging on TI," he said.

Blagovcanin also said that TI had information that some people from the list of officials and businessmen allegedly blackmailed by the corruption watchdog had been paid to make their accusations to the media.

Trading accusations

In the past year, TI has been highly critical of privatization deals across Bosnia, accusing officials of violating the basic principles of public procurement, concessions and privatization processes.

Earlier this year, TI launched proceedings against the Republika Srpska government for hiding information related to an agreement with Austrian construction company Strabag, which is slated to participate in building roads there. TI's main concern is that the Bosnian Serb government is seeking to change privatization legislation in order to avoid tenders and enable the direct selection of buyers.

Furthermore, in its reports, TI accused the Republika Srpska government of misusing entity funds during the construction of the recently opened government building, which cost some €120 million (though only €10 million was initially planned). TI also raised suspicion concerning the transparency of the construction of the Banja Luka-Gradiska highway. Over the past eight years, only 5.7 kilometers of the highway has been finished, at a price per kilometer higher than anywhere in Europe.

The corruption watchdog also accused Dodik of nepotism, saying that hundreds of millions of euros worth of public contracts had been signed with one or two construction companies, based in Dodik's home village of Laktasi, near Banja Luka, for undocumented works that largely exceed the initial budgets.

Dodik told Republika Srpska media that TI was aiming economically and politically to destabilize the Bosnian Serb entity, pointing to the fact that it alone among the country's international organizations was based in Banja Luka rather than Sarajevo.

"The focus of their activity was always in our entity, while the other, the Federation, was investigated only on the surface," Dodik complained, adding that the racketeering case would be investigated by the Republika Srpska Prosecutor's Office, since the state-level prosecutors could not be trusted.

Dodik said that Bosnian prosecutors had "dismissed" information about racketeering by TI officials for five years, suggesting that the international community here would not take kindly to such accusations.
The plot thickens

Nonetheless, the state-level prosecutor's office will likely be involved in the case, despite Dodik's wishes. Last week, the international community's Office of the High Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina (OHR) sent a letter to the Prosecutor's Office in Sarajevo, revealing a plan to discredit TI. The letter had been received by the OHR in early February.

Slobodan Vaskovic, chief editor of Banja Luka's weekly magazine Stav (Attitude), told ISN Security Watch that a man, describing himself as a "protected witness for Republika Srpska police," approached him in January saying that Dodik had promised him €100,000 to accuse the local branch of TI of organized crime and racketeering.

"A man approached me asking for money [€25,000] in exchange for revealing the details of Dodik's 'plot' to discredit TI. Since I don't have that kind of money, I told him to go to the National Front nongovernmental organization, led by Dragomir Babic," Vaskovic said.

After both Vaskovic and Babic refused to pay him, the "protected witness," in an attempt to prove his credibility, told them he had been instructed by Milos Cubrilovic, Dodik's chief of security, as to how to deliver his statement to the police and media in order to discredit TI. He offered them a voice recording of his conversation with Cubrilovic and other local police officials giving him the instructions and money. He said had already received part of the promised €100,000, and that he planned to take it and flee to neighboring Serbia.

Vaskovic told ISN Security Watch that the "protected witness" was actually a man by the name of Vladimir Latinovic, a known member of the organized crime network in Banja Luka. Latinovic was a suspect in the recent explosion of a local businessman's car. Previously, he was sentenced to one year in prison for hijacking vehicles belonging to the international community.

After meeting with Latinovic, Babic and Vaskovic penned a letter based on Latinovic's testimony, and sent it in February to the OHR in Sarajevo, hoping to warn them about a potential plot to discredit TI in Banja Luka.

"At that time, the information we received seemed incredible. However, since the developments over the last week have shown that the plan described in the letter is being implemented [...] OHR representatives are meeting with the state prosecutor over the letter, which can serve as potential evidence," OHR spokeswoman Ljiljana Radetic said at 1 July press conference.

Later that week, Republika Srpska police filed charges with the Bosnian Prosecutors Office against Latinovic, TI's Lekovic and Nikica Gligoric from the Bosnian Indirect Taxation Agency for organized crime and racketeering.

It is clear to most that this case should be resolved by the state prosecutor rather than the Republika Srpska media.

According to both Blagovcanin and Vaskovic, Dodik is trying to achieve more than one goal with this case: To show to his voters that he is not a criminal, but that the international community, through TI, is attempting to discredit him and destabilize the government and strip the Bosnian Serb entity of its authority.


Source: Ocnus.net 2008