Vjekoslav Bevanda, chair of the BiH Council of Ministers, told reporters that the government has thus far raised only €250 million for flood relief and reconstruction. The bulk of that amount is made up of loans from the IMF and World Bank.
Ahead of Wednesday’s donors conference, the President of the Council of Ministers, Bosnia’s state-level government, Vjekoslav Bevanda, told Balkan Insight that around 4 million euro was assured from the state-level government would be released though a budget review. Another 5 million euro was assured by the country’s two entities.
“Another 185 million KM [95 million euro] has come from the IMF while the World Bank loaned us 100 million dollars [74 million euro] at an interest rate of 1.25 per cent, with a grace period of 10 years and a deadline to return it of 20 years,” Bevanda said.
Last week, representatives from the governments of Serbia and BiH delivered preliminary assessments of the flood damage in their respective countries, ahead of a donor conference scheduled to be held in Brussels on July 16. The assessments were delivered to EU officials during a pre-conference meeting in Paris.
A damage assessment report that the Serbian government adopted on July 7 put the total cost of repairing the damage to Serbia at about €1.5 billion. This includes the damage done to homes, infrastructure, agriculture and to educational and other facilities.
Serbian authorities say 485 houses were completely destroyed by the deluge while 12,000 hectares of land will not be usable for agricultural production next season.
A preliminary damage assessment in Bosnia put the total cost of the damage to this country at about €2 billion.
