Youth organisation targets federal payroll in BiH

21/04/2008

A youth organisation in Bosnia and Herzegovina is campaigning to downsize the nation's government.

By Ivo Scepanovic for Southeast European Times -- 21/04/08

The youth organisation Revolt says the government should be downsized. [BiH government]

The youth organisation Revolt held several demonstrations in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) this month in its push to downsize the country's public payroll. On April 6th, the group held a rally in Sarajevo, following a demonstration in Mostar.

In Mostar, more than 1,000 people signed a ''Let's Cut the Administration'' petition in the first hour. Activists plan to send the signatures to authorities of both entities, Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH) and Republika Srpska (RS) and of all the cantons.

"Revolt is a nongovernment and nonprofit organisation [that is] ready to oppose any damaging actions committed by the ruling politicians," the group's charter says.

"We want people to send demands to authority representatives who sometimes behave like untouchables … Only in the period before elections they do not behave like untouchables," the organisation said in a statement.

"Through this symbolic action … we wanted to repeat our demand to shrink the public payroll in Bosnia and Herzegovina."

Other NGOs in the country have shown support for the Revolt campaign, including the Centres for Civil Initiatives, Ghetto, Youth Cultural Centre Abrasevic and Why Not? Many of the activists believe that the country would function better with fewer government employees.

The federal news agency Fena reports that the BiH government is expected to disburse 113m euros in salaries this year -- a significant increase from last year's 82m euros.

Salaries in parliament's House of Peoples increased by 37%, and government wages are 2.5 times higher than the average national income.

Revolt's past includes numerous protests and campaigns. One of the latter strove to erase all graffiti deemed offensive to any of the nation's minorities.