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Workshop 4 - Financing of the Municipal
Election Commissions
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Data on activities of MEC in 2001 were presented to participants
through interesting video presentation.
Almost 2/3 of Commissions in BiH have made working plan for funding
elections in their municipalities and majority sent those requests
and applied for municipal estimates in 2002.
As far as reactions of mayors and chiefs of finances to those requests
are concerned, they are mainly positive, but general problem of
lack of money in budget estimate of municipalities is evident.
The issue concerning compensation for work of MEC has been discussed
and it has been concluded that it shouldn't be more than KM 300
per month.
MEC should be equally paid regardless of size of municipality.
The answers were different to the question how much authority levels
should participate in funding of MEC.
Conference participants from RS thought that municipalities should
participate with 50% in funding of Commissions and participants
from the Federation of BiH thought that municipalities should participate
with 20-50% in funding of Commissions.
All participants agreed that Cantonal level should participate in
funding of MEC more than Municipal level since Cantons have more
resources planned in their budget than municipalities.
Referring to entity level, majority in the Republic of Srpska and
the Federation think that half expenses for MEC should be covered
by the entities. It is probably known that they have at least problems
with estimates.
At the end we conclude - final proposal based on discussions of
the Conference participants was that in the Federation of BiH municipality
participates with 30%, Canton with 20% and entity with 50% in funding
of MEC. In the Republic of Srpska the answer is 50% municipality
and 50% entity.
It is necessary to legally regulate elections funding, promptly
and in details, and to generally solve MEC funding until February
2002, at the same time Article 1.2 of the Election Law of BiH should
be strictly applied and elaborated in details by sub-Acts.
Two messages have been sent from this Workshop: to authorities in
BiH and to the international community. To the authorities in BiH:
"If you want BiH to exist, you have to make funds available
for the work of MECs as soon as possible ", and to the international
community: "We still need you".
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