No Guests, No Investments
Passing through Bosnia and Herzegovina, you will notice a great number of small towns, such as Kakanj, Vitez, Gorazde, Novi Grad… They seem like places that you would avoid even to visit a friend. Bad infrastructure, urban “solutions”, the decaying facades, shops, the all prevailing grayness is ever present. At the same time, Sarajevo, Banja Luka, Brcko and several other bigger cities look great, modern… they look like the rest of the world.
This misbalance is a consequence of the fact that foreign investments concentrate on the bigger cities, for reasons of investment security and timely payment of instalments. Therefore, 62.55% of all foreign investment is concentrated on the big centres, while the smaller cities are completely omitted when considering possible investing options. Another guilty party, in addition to the foreign investments, is the Government that still lacks a consistent plan for economic balancing inside the country. In terms of implementation of the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper, 15.07% of the planned activities were realized in the first six months of 2004. Knowing this and other data on the engagement of Government institutions, we can’t really say that the Government does nothing and it throws away the tax-payers’ money. We can, however, say that too little has been done, not enough for any significant changes. Not enough is done for the citizens, that provide for the salaries of ministers and members of Parliament, to feel that they lives are going for the better. Those four fifths of the population living in Novi Grad, Modrica, Vitez… will continue to survive by that magic, well developed in the majority of Balkan states stuck in the transition, of living for tomorrow only. By the way, according to the World Bank Data, the situation is worse only in the Ukraine. |
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