Officials and public servants started celebrating the May 1 holiday pretty early, as most of them were nowhere to be found already a day ahead of International Workers’ Day, although they cost taxpayers a large amount of money.

On Monday it was unusually quiet in the government institutions on all levels – entity, canton and municipal.

The government had declared May 1 and 2 non-working days, a Tuesday and a Wednesday. But many officials have taken Monday off as well, turning Labour Day into a five or six day vacation at the seaside.

Some 100.000 people are employed in Bosnia’s huge and complex public sector on all government levels. They cost taxpayers 668 million BAM a year.

One of the two sub-state entities, Republika Srpska (RS), pays its administration 718,5 million BAM annually. But the Federation (FBiH) and its layers of government cost taxpayers the most.

“At the Federation level, costs of salaries for public servants amount to 198,1 million BAM, although there are 43 less employees than last year. At the canton levels, the costs amount to 1.16 billion BAM, although the number of employees there decreased by 83 since last year. At the municipal level, 230,2 million BAM goes for salaries. The number of employees on this level increased by 351,” FBiH entity Finance Minister, Jelka Milicevic, said.

Those who cost the most are elected representatives, whose large salaries are mostly undeserved, according to local NGOs. The most recent example of this is a House of Peoples session which lasted no more than five minutes, including the required playing of the Bosnian anthem.

Since the beginning of 2018, the House of Representatives has held five sessions and two extraordinary ones and the House of Peoples has held five scheduled ones and one extraordinary one. The FBiH House of Representatives has held four sessions, and the entity House of Peoples three. The National Assembly of the other entity, Republika Srpska, has held two sessions.