Citizens in Privatisation

Capitalists Out of Pockets

AIM Sarajevo, 5 June, 1999

The awe felt by ordinary mortals in B&H Federation for computers and all such devices is seriously shaken. After more than 1.9 million statements of accounts bearing the amounts of privatisation certificates of citizens were had been sent to their home addresses, numerous errors and omissions came out in the open, most frequently wrong data. "Should half of the statements contain errors we can consider ourselves lucky", one of the federal officials commented resignedly while the printed statements were setting out to their final destinations.

The concept of privatisation in B&H Federation is founded on mass participation of citizens in the purchase of state property. Since the citizens of B&H in general, with a few honourable exceptions, can be considered classic poverty, something had to be given in order to be able to "trade" with the state. Fortunately, the state recalled that it owed its subjects a lot of money which frankly speaking it had nowhere to return from, so privatisation proved to be as a wonderful opportunity for the state to get rid of its debts and at the same time give the citizens a share in the privatisation race. That is how it came to be that demobilised soldiers and policemen were given as indemnification for the unpaid salaries during the war certificates at the "rate" of 400 marks per every month spent in uniform. In the total amount of certificates, with their 7.7 billion marks, this is the biggest item.

Even the pensioners finally got what they are entitled to: they were paid the difference between pensions they have received in the past years and what they should have been paid. Of course, the pensioners were not given money either, but also certificates. However, with their total of 700 million marks they are the smallest item. Owners of the old foreign currency saving accounts from B&H Federation to whom the state owes almost three billion marks could choose between certificates and the uncertain future of the banks which at the moment of weakness they had entrusted with their money. Finally, the state has "loosened the purse-strings" for all those who had been the citizens of B&H or had had permanent residence on the territory of the Federation before the war, under condition that they are older than 18: their merit in creation of the former social or state ownership was recognised and the award are "general claims" of 1900 marks per person augmented by 190 marks per year of service.

"Squaring accounts" with the citizens on these grounds cost the state additional seven billion marks also in certificates. Had Bosnia & Herzegovina been a normal country, there would have been no problem with this distribution of "tickets" for privatisation. Unfortunately, not even three and a half years after the war in this country does anybody know even how many inhabitants it has, least of all "trifles" such as the current addresses of its citizens. For collecting all these data it was necessary to talk the two pension systems co-existing in the Federation (Sarajevo and Mostar), two parallel police systems, two military registers and about ten business banks. The situation with the data on years of service best illustrates the confusion that rules this sphere. Data on the prewar period remained preserved at the computer centre in Sarajevo for all those employed in B&H before the war. On the other hand, the records of the pension and disability insurance fund in Mostar include the data on years of service for citizens from the territory of former "Herceg Bosna" since 1992 to this day, while the records for all the other citizens are still at the pension and disability insurance fund seated in Sarajevo. In order to calculate how many certificates each citizen is entitled to on the grounds of general claims it was necessary to establish how many years of service he/she has, or in case of pensioners, how much money they were deprived of in the past several years. A few months' long haggling of the two funds was finally ended by "Solomonian solution". The computer centre in Sarajevo, which had the prewar data, sold them for about 40 thousand marks to the fund in Mostar so they could complete the data for their insurance holders. Then each fund sent the completed data for its "subjects" on disquettes to the Sarajevo Institute of Payment Operations where they were entered into the central computer for which the Americans had ordered and paid adequate software. The main identification for every individual account and every debt is the individual number of the citizen so it was necessary to establish a connection between all these figures.

The situation with claims of former soldiers and policemen was not any better, because when they are concerned each component of the army of the Federation - B&H Army and the Croat Defence Council (HVO) - had its own data base which "got together" only at the central computer at the Institute for Payment Operations. Unfortunate operaters at this central computer system who were most frequently mentioned by thousands of citizens, from the very beginning were not at all enthusiastic about the diversity and quality of the data bases that were sent to them. Besides, the software which was supposed to introduce order into them did not arrive in time to be tested. In the Institute for Payment Operations they swear that they are not responsible for the errors, because all they did was enter the data that had been sent to them. The result were absurdities such as a pensioner whose statement duly says how much money the state owes him on the ground of unpaid pensions, but the total number of years of service which the "general claim" depends on is - zero.

It probably is not hard to imagine what confusion arose when time came for the statements to be sent to home addresses - the prewar ones (because the police obviously does not have any other). In the country where more than half of the population have at least once changed their address since the beginning of the war, if not the city, the state and even the continent, to send a latter to somebody to the prewar home address is truly a brave move. How many statements have an error nobody knows at this moment. As of 7 June, the legal time-limit of 30 days for complaints has started, and if the optimistic estimate about half of erroneous statements turns out to be true, a very long time will be needed to remove the errors. It is indicative that at the Agency fo Privatisation it was already announced that "if needed, the time-limit will be prolonged". It is almost certain that it will unavoidably have to be prolonged; for how long, that is the only question

• for one month or even longer. It should be comforting for the citizens that they will not have to pay a tax to the bureaucracy to have what it had blundered corrected. When they finally get the correct amounts on their statements, these future "capitalists out of pockets" will be able to seek answer to the question what they can do with their certificates, that is how to turn a piece of paper into something tangible, if it will not be too late.

Drazen SIMIC (AIM Sarajevo)