BiH taxpayers could pay 28 million Bosnian marks (some €14 million) for the procurement of forms of identity cards that were contracted but never used said the BiH Audit Office whose Report on the Procurement and Functionality of Personal Documents states that there is a risk of interpretation of one provision of the contract signed with the company MUEHLBAUER ten years ago by the Agency for Identification Documents, Records and Data Exchange of BiH (IDDEEA).

According to the auditor, the contract defined that BiH will acquire 5,000,000 identity cards and 2,000,000 driver's licenses, but over the years only 65% of identity cards were used, while the last contracted quantities of driver's licenses were withdrawn at the end of last year, Transparency International BiH reported.

As the ten-year contract expires next year, there is a danger that BiH will have to pay for 1.7 million unused identity cards because the report states that Article 3 of the contract provides for the payment of the total contracted amount of identity documents, noting that after the end of the contract there is risk regarding the interpretation of the said provision.

The risk of paying 28 million marks for the unrealized 1.5 million ID cards still exists because the IDDEEA did not resolve the issue of ending the existing contract with the supplier regarding the contractual obligation to purchase total quantities of ID cards, the Audit Office stated.

Back in 2015, they warned that this could happen and that the trends are such that a significantly smaller amount of identity cards is delivered than contracted. Because of all this, the BiH Civil Affairs Ministry formed a working group in 2016 to analyze the possible harmful consequences of this contract, especially those related to obligations to pay the total contracted quantities.

The analysis proposed the conclusion that a special working group should be formed with the task of conducting negotiations with the supplier and trying to make changes to the contract that could cause damage to the BiH budget, but that issue was never resolved.

The Transparency International BiH has been warning for years that the IDDEEA favours the company MUEHLBAUER to which it awards contracts without public bidding.