The International Community has again prepared an overview of statistics reflecting the implementation of the property laws in each municipality. You will find the figures for each municipality for the month of July attached.
Comparing the July figures with those from June, there has been some progress in both Entities. In the Federation, the number of decisions issued increased from 54,570 (46%) to 56,249 (48%), while the number of repossessed residential properties increased from 21,868 (18%) to 24,211 (21%). In Republika Srpska, the percentage of issued decisions went up from 23,409 (22%) to 27,713 (24%) as the number of repossessed residential properties increased from 8,515 (8%) to 10,535 (9%).
It is evident that municipalities with fewer claims appear to have achieved 100% resolution, but cannot be compared for efficiency with areas that are dealing with thousands of claims. It should also be noted that these statistics do not necessarily reflect the rate of implementation of the approximate 120,000 CRPC decisions that have been issued to date. Implementation rates for CRPC decisions remain low throughout BiH.
The primary impediment to increased implementation remains political obstruction. Many Local officials have yet to become fully supportive of the process. Unfortunately, obstruction continues to occur actively – in the form of canceled evictions, failure to follow procedures, failure to solve double occupancy, harassment of claimants and instigating violent incidents – and passively – including failure to provide adequate staffing and funding resources to housing offices and failure to secure alternative accommodation. Such obstruction was the motivation behind the recent dismissals of 15 local officials, and provides evidence for ongoing criminal investigations and prosecutions that may result in prison sentences of up to five years. The International Community will continue to monitor closely the performance of local officials and document violations in non-compliance reports through the Property Law Implementation Plan.
Despite some progress in the property law implementation in the month of July, there is no reason for complacency. Much more is required to achieve meaningful results. Decisions must be implemented without delay in all municipalities throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina.