The Brčko District Prosecutor’s Office pressed charges against Ćazim Dačaj, the then MP of Brčko District Assembly, for awarding grants to citizens’ associations and then demanding a kickback. Dačaj is accused of obtaining a property gain of BAM 130,500 based on grants awarded from 2015 to 2020.
The Brčko District Basic Court confirmed the indictment in early January.
In late 2019, the Center for Investigative Journalism (CIN) wrote about his defalcations.
Reporters revealed MPs using grant money to pay up their friends and party colleagues and secure votes in elections. Dačaj then admitted to having received about a hundred votes thanks to the grants he awarded, which was enough to win a mandate in the Assembly as a representative of a national minority with 384 votes.
Following CIN’s story, the Brčko District Prosecutor’s Office started investigating into grant awarding and related abuses.
During 2018 and 2019, Dačaj awarded more than BAM 650,000 worth of grants to associations. Half of these associations were founded only a few months before he awarded them the grants. Nothing is known about their work, and CIN reporters never found them at the registered addresses.
The research showed that in these two years the MPs distributed more than nine million convertible marks, with no rules or controls ever being applied. On the other hand, the representatives of the association also squandered the taxpayers’ money – feasting themselves and their friends, buying expensive furniture and equipment, and manipulating the bills to justify the costs.
