Insufficient budget for Serbian information Commissioner

NEWS 23.05.201818:02
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Serbia’s public information commissioner said on Wednesday that he has not been given enough money to pay his staff’s salaries.

Commissioner Rodoljub Sabic said insufficient funds have been earmarked in the state budget for his office, adding that staff salaries might not be paid and a reduction of their number will have to be considered.

Sabic told the Serbian Parliament Administrative Committee that according to approved plans, the institution he heads can have up to 94 employees but that it will not be able to pay even the current 77 staff members. The Administrative Committee approved the plan on the higher number of employees.

“A clerk in the Finance Ministry planned the (Commissioner’s 2018) budget which has no foothold in reality and I can now tell the staff to sue me if their salaries aren’t paid which means the ministry will have to find a way to pay them,” Sabic said.

The parliament committee approved staff plans for 12 independent and other parliament bodies, totaling 490 employees, leading an opposition MP to recall that parliament had a total of 75 employees in 2001.