The Center for Investigative Reporting (CIN), a Sarajevo-based news agency, has investigated the holdings of 160 politicians for the past nine months. A database containing all of their findings on the wages, movable and immovable property, biographies and other assets has been published.
Access to the politicians’ information became more difficult after the Central Election Commission withdrew data on politicians’ assets from its web page in 2012 in the wake of a Court of BiH’s ruling protecting personal data.
CIN reporters have collected more than 2,700 documents, including “all asset cards from the previous and current election year, land records, court rulings, indictments and other official documents,” said CIN’s editor-in-chief Renata Radić-Dragić. The reporters have also conducted more than 100 interviews, although a number of politicians refused to talk to CIN reporters.
Others were more responsive, said CIN reporter Mirjana Popović. “Many agencies replied to us within the legal deadline with complete records. However, with some of them we had great trouble, because we had to keep insisting on an answer for months on end, and some refused our request,” she said.
Biographical information on each politician, such as level of education, professional and political career, savings, credits, and business ownership including stocks, is covered in the database. Additionally, information on police investigations, lawsuits and court rulings against the politicians and their companies is summarized.
Of the 160 politicians in the database, nearly 100 are running for office in the coming October elections. Of those, 51 declared savings worth more than 5 million KM (US$ 3.2 million). Some of the incumbents entered politics with no assets.
The database is available at http://www.imovinapoliticara.cin.ba/or http://www.cin.ba/imovinapoliticara/. Mobile communication devices can access it too.
