The Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina has charged state Minister of Defense Marina Pendeš with careless performance of official duties and forging documents for authorizing a salary to an advisor who didn’t bother coming to work.
While she held the office of deputy minister of defense in 2013, Pendeš hired the former member of the BiH Presidency Ivo Miro Jović, her party colleague from Croatian Democratic Union, as an advisor. The arrangement took 17,000 KM from the BiH budget, according to the BiH Prosecutor’s Office.
According to an indictment, Pendeš ordered her secretary to keep record of his presence even though he was not coming to work. “Probes established that the said person was not regularly coming to work, and he was receiving salaries and allowances,” said the prosecutor’s office.
Thanks to party colleagues in high posts, Jović was not idle after his in the BiH Parliament’s House of Peoples expired in 2011. First, he received a year’s worth of severance pay in the amount of 4,611 KM a month. Later, Josip Kvasina, then chairman of the Central Bosnia Assembly, appointed Jović as his advisor in July 2012. Jović remained for a year in that post then moved to Pendeš’ office.
Pendeš refused to comment on the charges, and said that she was not informed about the indictment. The BiH Prosecutor’s Office announced that it would prove the charges by calling eight witness and forensic experts to the stand. The indictment is accompanied by some 70 pieces of evidence.
