Prime Minister of Canton Sarajevo Elmedin Konaković and Minister of Economy Muharem Šabić met with 30 employees of former Tourist Association of Canton Sarajevo. They announced that they will secure means to pay outstanding pay for the past 3 months, with the condition of determining a precise payment procedure. “After you agree upon the technical procedures with your management, it is necessary to deliver a list with the correct amount of your income on a monthly basis, along with your name and last name”, said Prime Minister Konaković and he also added that he understands the situation of these people.
He stated that he can not promise that the newly formed Tourist Association of Canton Sarajevo will employ all the former employees, but those with experience, Prime Minister said, will definitely be employed. The status of the Tourist Association of CS was one of many problems we found when we took office. This Tourist Association ceased to exist with the verdict of the Constitutional Court. All legal acts that have been adopted so far have been declared null. With an additional verdict, it was ordered to all the ministries to apply the first verdict, which means that this Association shall be deleted from the register and does not exist anymore” , said Prime Minister Konaković.
According to Konaković, after the current management of former Tourist declined to act in accordance with regulation, the Association continues to exist as an association of citizens that collects parafiscal charge. “The Law on Tourism that we adopted in December of the previous year prescribed an entrance to the previous Tourist Association, taking over their books, archive, equipment, determining the exact number of employees and their professions, with the main goal of creating a new Job Classification Rule Book. However, the old management wouldn't let us do that”, said Prime Minister Konaković. As Prime Minister stated, there are two legal obstacles created by the previous management. They filed an appeal to the Constitutional Court on the new Law on Tourism, so the Constitutional Court had to implement measures that need to be implemented in the case of adopting laws that are not legal, but the Constitutional Court rejected this appeal. Even the newly founded Tourist Association could be signed into the register, but the second appeal is not over yet and if there are some kind of errors, they can bring us back to the beginning of the process and annul its existence, and also the status of current acting management.
The Prime Minister also stated that he will no longer allow the existence of a single organization which spends money in a nontransparent way, without any responsibility to its founders, to the Assembly or to the Government of the Canton. This is the end of these kind of practices.
Minister Šabić also talked to the employees and he said that it was not possible to cooperate with the former management. “They have not provided us with an answer to a single official document, and the money is being transferred to the account of the new Tourist Association only in the last month because even in that department we had obstacles. We only want to operate according to the law”, said Minister Šabić.
A longtime tourist worker and an employee of the former Tourist Association Šejla Islamović, represented the employees, she tanked the Prime Minister and to the Minister for their understanding and she said that they were ready for dialogue and peaceful resolution of these issues at the very beginning. "The most important thing for us is that we will get the last 3 outstanding pays, and the the pay for the month of April in May, because we all have to feed our families with that money, and most of us have to pay of credit debts”, said Islamović, and she also added they all hope that their legal employment status will be soon solved, because they are aware of the importance of tourism development , and their experience can be a significant contribution to that goal.
