The High Cost of Civil Servant Vinko Jakić’s Sick Leave

‘He doesn’t want to work. He doesn’t want to come to work,’ says Emir Bašić, director of the Federation Agency for Managing Seized Property, speaking about his predecessor, Vinko Jakić, who has been on sick leave for more than three years.

For most citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), being absent from work for such a long period would have serious consequences. In Jakić’s case, however, his absence has resulted in his salary continuing to be paid from the public purse, while his employer has repeatedly asked him to come to work.

In August 2023, the Government of the Federation of BiH (FBiH) dismissed him as director over one work report that had not been adopted and several others that had not been submitted. Bašić was appointed the Agency’s new director, and immediately after his dismissal, Jakić went on sick leave, which continues to this day.

When dismissing him, the Government decided that Jakić would retain his status as a senior civil servant and would be assigned a suitable position within the institution. However, the Agency has been unable to appoint him to a post because he does not meet the requirements for the only available position.

Despite this, Jakić has continued to receive the salary of an assistant director at the Federation Agency for Managing Seized Property while on sick leave.

Between August 2023 and August 2026, he was paid more than BAM 88,000 from the FBiH budget.

He will continue to receive his salary until the court proceedings he has brought against the FBiH Government over his dismissal are concluded.

While on sick leave, Jakić also worked privately as a lecturer at the International University of Travnik, despite neither requesting nor obtaining the required authorisation from director Bašić.

‘The Agency established that, during his sick leave, he was working as a lecturer at the University in Travnik, and was therefore able and capable of communicating and submitting the requested documents to resolve his employment status, but this was clearly not his priority,’ states a February 2025 ruling by the Municipal Court in Sarajevo.

Jakić told journalists from the Centre for Investigative Reporting (CIN) that the payments were unlawful because he did not hold the position in question.

‘Show me the decision appointing me as assistant director! Can you pay someone a salary when they don’t have a formal appointment? They could have paid me the prime minister’s salary, for all I care.’

‘Well, if I am unlawfully paying him, then he is unlawfully spending that money,’ Bašić replied.

Salary without a position, work without authorisation

Since August 2023, Vinko Jakić has been receiving the salary of an assistant director at the Federation Agency for Managing Seized Property. He does not meet the requirements for the position because he does not hold a certified accountant’s qualification, and was therefore never formally appointed to it.

Nevertheless, the Agency continues to pay him as though he were working in the post.

Bašić, the Agency’s current director, says he will never appoint Jakić to a position for which he does not meet the requirements, but believes that he cannot leave him without an income while he is on sick leave.

Jakić is officially recorded as an unassigned civil servant. The FBiH Civil Service Act expressly provides that a civil servant is entitled to the salary corresponding to their position. Jakić is paid a salary on the basis of his inclusion on the list of senior civil servants maintained by the FBiH Civil Service Agency.

Jakić was offered the position of head of an organisational unit, for which he meets the requirements, but turned it down because it is not a senior civil service position.

Bašić says that, during Jakić’s three years of sick leave, every possible avenue for assigning him to a position has been exhausted. There is no other post available to him because the assistant director position is the only one the Agency can offer, while Jakić has failed to obtain and submit proof that he is a certified accountant.

‘We tried everything: contacting him by phone, by post and by email about his employment status. He never got back to us,’ Bašić says.

Meanwhile, Jakić continued to work at the International University of Travnik, where he was employed as a lecturer under a service contract.

He did not have the required authorisation from the director of the Federation Agency for Managing Seized Property for this work because he never requested it.

Jakić has authorisation from the Administrative Commission of the FBiH Government dating from 2022, when he was still director. He believes that this means he does not need Bašić’s approval.

However, Samir Kurtović, president of the FBiH Civil Servants’ Trade Union, says the authorisation issued by the Administrative Commission was valid only for the period when Jakić was director.

‘He now has to obtain authorisation from the Agency’s director to perform other work. Without that authorisation, he cannot do it.’

Jakić claims that his engagement with the university was subsequently terminated because of pressure allegedly exerted by the Agency. The private educational institution did not provide information on the payments made to him, nor did it confirm that his engagement had ended.

Director and nothing else

Jakić served as director of the Federation Agency for Managing Seized Property from September 2019. He initially served as acting director, before being appointed director by the FBiH Government after he emerged as the top candidate in a public recruitment process.

The director serves a four-year term and is required to submit six-monthly reports on the Agency’s work to the Government, which then forwards them to the FBiH Parliament for approval. Under the FBiH Law on the Forfeiture of Proceeds of Criminal Offences, the Government may dismiss the director before the end of the term if a work report is not adopted.

The FBiH Parliament did not adopt Jakić’s report for the second half of 2020. He subsequently stopped submitting the required reports.

He was therefore dismissed on 2 August 2023. Under the Government’s decision, he retained his status as a senior civil servant and was to be assigned a position within the Federation Agency for Managing Seized Property.

Jakić initially appealed his dismissal to the FBiH Civil Service Appeals Board. His appeal was rejected as unfounded after the Board determined that the procedure had been properly followed and that the decision was lawful.

Jakić then sued the FBiH Government.

On three occasions, he asked the Municipal Court in Sarajevo to issue interim measures: to reinstate him as director, prohibit any legal action against him, and prevent public statements about him until the court proceedings he had initiated against the Government were concluded. He was turned down all three times.

In its most recent ruling, issued in February 2025, the Court found that Jakić was obstructing efforts to resolve his employment status.

The Court established that, by failing to respond to the Agency’s requests to resolve his status, he had created a period of uncertainty that made it impossible to assign him to the only vacant senior civil service position.

The Court held that his sick leave could not be used as an excuse, as he had failed to submit the documentation required for the assistant director position, despite being able to work privately at the same time. The Court also found that resolving his employment status should have been in his own interest.

‘On the contrary, he has evidently devoted all his efforts to attempting to prove that his dismissal as director was unlawful, (…) apparently believing that he should hold only a senior management position as director,’ the court ruling states.

Bašić asked the FBiH Civil Service Agency to declare Jakić redundant.

Such a procedure is initiated when there is no possibility of assigning a civil servant to any available position. If he is declared redundant, he may be assigned to another government body that needs to fill a position for which he meets the requirements.

If he is still not assigned a position, his employment is terminated, with an entitlement to severance pay.

Because of Jakić’s prolonged absence from work and the discovery that he was working privately while on sick leave, the Agency for Managing Seized Property filed three criminal complaints against him with the Sarajevo Canton Prosecutor’s Office.

The Sarajevo Canton Prosecutor’s Office confirmed that one case is currently being reviewed over an alleged abuse of sick leave, while two cases have been transferred to the Special Department of the FBiH Prosecutor’s Office (POSKOK), where information is being gathered.

Three disciplinary proceedings have also been initiated against Jakić, but none has yet been concluded.

The Agency has contacted the Sarajevo Canton Administration for Inspection Affairs and the Sarajevo Canton Health Insurance Fund in writing more than 100 times. It received responses stating that Jakić’s sick leave was being administered in accordance with the relevant procedures. The Sarajevo Canton Health Insurance Fund also confirmed this to CIN journalists.

Jakić says he would return to work at the Agency if his health improved, but that this is not possible because he does not have a position.

‘Vinko Jakić does not want to work. Vinko Jakić wants to be director and nothing else,’ Bašić concluded.