GOT A DEGREE IN TOURISM TO WORK IN TRANSPORT Andrijana Katić hired the president of a HDZ BiH City Board Mostar

There is a public vacancy for the position in the FBiH Ministry of transport and communications, led by HDZ’s Andrijana Katić, that stood out as interesting during our regular monitoring of recruitment procedures.

Two positions were announced by the public vacancy of November 30, 2023 titled “PUBLIC VACANCY for recruitment of civil servants in the Federation Ministry of transport and communications”; namely the advisor for analytical work in the minister’s office, and specialist for legal affairs – Department for normative and legal affairs and administrative recourse in the Sector for legal and general affairs.

A tourist in the Ministry of transport

The requirements for the position number 1 were, to say the least, strangely written. The requirements were: university degree, VII degree of qualifications, i.e. higher education of first cycle (with 240 ECTS credits) or the second or the third cycle of Bologna system, which is in no way unusual or controversial, but it further reads that candidates must have a degree from the Faculty of Law, the Faculty of Natural Sciences, Mathematics and Educational Sciences - tourism and environmental protection department or another faculty of social and humanistic sciences or teacher education. 

Other requirements were pretty much standard, at least three years of professional experience after obtaining a degree, knowledge of English language and computer literacy.

Such an unusually created vacancy has immediately caught our attention. Why was a single department at a faculty so specifically mentioned amongst so many generally listed faculties? What tourism and environment protection have to do with transport and communications?

The things became much clearer when the rumors started in Mostar’s HDZ about person for whom that position was prepared. Several mails were sent to Hercegovina.info stating that the entire procedure was rigged for Doris Čuljak, president of the Mostar’s branch of HDZ BiH youth.

She was not employed by HDZ, but by the green agenda of the European Commission 

Prompted by this information, we sent an inquiry to the ministry to check the motive behind adding one more advisor to the staff establishment plant and designing the public vacancy in a way that gives priority to people with major in tourism to be employed in a well-paid advisory position in the Ministry of Transport.

“Since Article 3, Paragraph 32 of the Law on Energy Efficiency in the Federation of BiH (Official Gazette of the Federation of BiH, number: 22/17) stipulates that the competent ministries in terms of this Law are: Federation Ministry of Transport and Communications, Federation Ministry of Spatial Planning and the Federation Ministry of Environment and Tourism, it was decided to introduce a new position in the Minister's Office and to include, in addition to the general educational majors of the faculties, the faculty of natural sciences, mathematics and educational sciences - the department of tourism and environmental protection. In order for the Ministry to more easily exercise competence introduced by the Law, this position was included as to enable easier implementation of the activities, policies and projects concerning everything that is included in the Green Agenda of the European Commission for the Western Balkans. Thus the Ministry will be conducting tasks from its plan that aim to improve energy efficiency in the transport sector, as well as activities related to the railway modernization projects, which is an area of transport recognized as having the least impact on the environment", read the response of the FBiH Ministry of transport and communications signed by the minister Andrijana Katić.

Two candidates applied, one was lost in the process

We were also curious about how many candidates applied to this public vacancy, so we contacted the Civil Service Agency.

“Hereby we would like to inform you that the deadline for the submission of applications under the vacancy in question has expired, two applications were received, and the procedure will continue (review of applications, conducting the General Knowledge Test and the Professional Test)”, replied the Agency to Hercegovina.info on January 4, 2024.

The recruitment procedure lasted until February 23, 2024, when the candidate took the general knowledge exam, and the results were announced on March 20.

The second candidate dropped out somewhere in the process, perhaps realizing that he/she has never stood any chance, and with the maximum number of points, the president of the HDZ BiH City Youth Board, Doris Čuljak, was hired for this position with a net salary of BAM 1,578.5.
Each of the members of the selection committee, Adrijana Prskalo, Alma Sirko and Izudina Smajkić, gave her the maximum number of points for the oral part of the professional exam.

Ten years of blind loyalty to the party ripened for harvest 

At the constituting meeting of the youth of the Mostar City Board, held in March 2023, Čuljak was elected president.

“Doris has been an active member of the Youth of HDZ BiH since 2014, and has initiated many activities through her political engagement”, read the press release of the HDZ BiH Youth.

Čuljak is a loyal HDZ soldier who is also very active on the social networks, where she regularly retweets Dragan Čović's tweets, debates with the party's political opponents, strongly supports Israel and reminds us of the various injustices committed against the Croatian people in BiH, and this injustice towards other candidates and people who may have qualifications but don't have “good ties” is one of the ways in which her loyalty to the party is being rewarded.

Persistently towards sinecure

This employment is not the only reward for Doris Čuljak's loyalty. She was also rewarded with a lucrative position in the Board of Directors of the FBiH Environmental Protection Fund, to which she was appointed by the Government of the Federation of BiH at the end of 2023.

Of course, if you had any doubts, Čuljak graduated from the University of Mostar, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Mathematics and Educational Sciences - majoring in tourism and environmental protection. What a coincidence that the president of Mostar’s HDZ youth is the ideal candidate to advise on the energy transition in transport.

HDZ BiH has become so capable in fixing positions for its prominent members over time that they very elegantly remove all obstacles in their path, and unforgivingly adjust job requirements. Special requirements are removed from public vacancy in a single move, whilst the ones that correspond to the qualifications of the candidate who has been pre-selected at party mixers are added.

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