Nine state ministries paid out 455,992 KM in retirement severance to 32 officeholders. (Photo: CIN)

By: The Center for Investigative Reporting

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Bosnia and Herzegovina paid out 110,038 KM in retirement severance to the minister’s aide, seven ambassadors and one civil servant who went on to become an ambassador –Nerkez Arifhodžić.

Arifhodžić took severance in the amount of 3,628 KM in August 2006. Six years later, in July 2012, the BiH Presidency appointed him the BiH ambassador in Rome, Italy. He remained in office until July 2015.

The Ministry published records on retirement severances at the request of Mladen Bosić, a state MP. He had requested the records from the Office of Secretary General of the BiH Council of Ministers about the severance that had been paid out to the appointed and elected officials, advisors to the ministers and secretary generals since 2006. Bosić also wanted to know how many of them went back to civil service after officially retiring. Eight ministries have disclosed the records within a deadline, while the foreign ministry provided data late.

Based on the records, it is clear that nine state ministries have paid 455,992 KM in retirement severance to 32 officeholders, including former ministers, their deputies, aids and secretary generals.

The biggest sums went to former BiH minister of civil affairs Sredoje Nović – 28,748 KM; former deputy BiH minister of defense Živko Marjanac – 25,492 KM; and former deputy BiH minister for human rights and refugees Slavko Marin – 24,616 KM.

Even though all three took their retirement severances, they have found employ in various government departments. Nović is an MP at the BiH Parliament’s House of Peoples; Marjanac is a vice-president of the Republika Srpska Council of Peoples, while Marin is a chairman of Novi Travnik Municipal Council.

State prosecutors told reporters from the Center for Investigative Reporting in Sarajevo that they have been investigating allegations from a criminal report that questions the legality of officeholders’ severance, retirement and employment contracts.