Bosnia has paid nearly 30 million euros in commitment fees since the mid-1990s for a number of mainly infrastructure projects financed through loans and which, for various reasons, have faced long delays.

According to information obtained by BIRN via Bosnia’s Freedom of Information Act, the country’s largest entity, the Federation of Bosnia, has paid around 15 million euros in such fees – charged by a lender to a borrower to compensate the lender for its commitment to lend – for 74 projects between 1996 and 2018.

Bosnia’s various governments, at state, entity and cantonal levels, are in charge of spending loans, but a lack of transparency makes it difficult to determine precisely how much Bosnia has paid for not implementing dozens of planned projects.

The Finance Ministry of Bosnia’s other entity, the Republika Srpska, told BIRN only that “all information can be found on the webpage of the Ministry of Finance in this entity.”