Scrapped US Health Conference Costs Bosnia Canton Dear

Kenan Crnkic, the former director of the Health Insurance Institute of Bosnia’s Sarajevo Canton faces a criminal complaint for paying the Center for Transatlantic Relations of John Hopkins University in Washington about 20,000 euros to organize a regional conference on health reform that never took place.

The Institute’s new director, Samir Turkovic – who realised the money was missing following an audit – told BIRN that he filed the charges against Kenan Crnkic last February because Crnkic never obtained the approval of the board of directors of the Institute to spend the cash. The board “is the only body legally authorized” to do that, Turkovic said.

The conference on cooperation between health institutes in the region should have taken place in Washington in November 2015.

Preparations were interrupted, however, when Crnkic was axed in August 2015 for excessive spending, as was said at the time.

The Center for Transatlantic Relations says it was not aware the conference was being organized without the necessary permits and it had believed the leadership of Sarajevo Canton stood behind the project.

Crnkic, who declined to speak to the BIRN Bosnia and Herzegovina about the matter, is himself suing the Sarajevo Canton, claiming he was fired illegally.

The Sarajevo Cantonal government says it did not know about or support the conference. The Cantonal Prosecution says it is still studying the allegations contained in the criminal complaint against Crnkic.

Conference that never happened

BIRN BiH learned that Crnkic addressed the Mediterranean Basin Initiative of the Center for Transatlantic Relations Center at the beginning of 2015.

Initiative director Sasa Toperic says the management of the Center was originally unsure about whether to cooperate with the Health Insurance Institute.

“We did not respond to his inquiry for several months because we could not understand how a Cantonal Health Insurance Institute could make use of our Mediterranean Basin Initiative,” Toperic, a former envoy of the Bosnian state presidency to the US, said.

He only agreed to cooperate with Crnkic after meeting him in Sarajevo in May 2015, he added.

“Crnkic suggested that the Health Insurance Institute might become ‘a leader of reform’ in the Western Balkans and change the negative image of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the business world,” he recalled.

“He pointed to ‘a number of success stories under his leadership’ aimed at reducing corruption, improving the health system and ensuring a fair social policy in determining the essential lists of medications. To prove that, he sent us a press clipping,” Toperic continued.

Crnkic proposed that the conference be held in late 2015, under his presidency, focusing on ways to get health institutes in the region to cooperate, reduce corruption, protect patients and increasing profits simultaneously.

According to Toperic, Crnkic said he had discussed the conference with Sarajevo Canton Prime Minister Dino Konakovic and it had been agreed that “the Cantonal leadership would help this project come to life”.

“It later turned out to be untrue,” Toperic confirmed.

Konakovic told BIRN BiH he had never known of the Health Insurance Institute’s plan to cooperate with the Transatlantic Relations Center and never lent support to the project.

“This was exclusively Crnkic’s self-promotion. This is not the only problem we discovered after analyzing the financial activities of the Institute. This led to his replacement, as well as to filing criminal charges against him by the Institute’s new director,” Konakovic said.

According to Toperic, the organization of the conference in November was well underway between May and July 2015 when Crnkic was suddenly dismissed.

By then, medical and pharmaceutical companies from the region and America had been contacted in order to participate. Toperic said Crnkic had proposed a list of US healthcare companies that would take part.

He said embassies had also been contacted, adding that a part of the Transatlantic Relations Center staff, who were involved in the conference preparation, were compensated and reimbursed for expenses occurred for their work by funds from the Health Insurance Institute. An external consultant from the World Bank was also hired.

“I did not take any of those resources,” Toperic maintained.

According to Toperic, after Crnkic was replaced in the middle of the conference preparations, the Center attempted to contact the new director of the Institute, Turkovic, but without success.

Toperic said the conference was then cancelled and the American partners were informed that this was because of “internal problems” in Bosnia.

Crnkic, Cantonal Health Insurance Institute director from December 2013 to August 2015, was released from his duties on the request of the Cantonal government.

This followed a report on the work and activities of the Institute, which was not adopted due to the excessive costs that Crnkic had run up.

Money spent without authorization

Turkovic says he ordered a check on the Institute’s finances in February 2016, adding that he was then informed that it had spent 21,000 euros on “membership” of the Center for Transatlantic Relations.

The Institute’s board of directors, the only body that could have approved such membership, had not been informed about it, he added.

“The Institute sent a written warning to the Center for Transatlantic Relations, informing it that the membership fee had been paid against formal procedures, which implied there were no legal grounds for the payment,” he recalled.

“This written document, substantially, formally and legally represented a warning prior to filing charges, because this was a legally invalid affair,” Turkovic said.

He said he did not know whether the conference ever took place, as the Institute “had no interest” in it.

Turkovic said all the documentation on the case had been sent to the Cantonal Prosecution in Sarajevo, which is still checking the allegations before deciding whether to open a criminal investigation.

Crnkic did not want to discuss this case with BIRN BIH but has filed his own complaint through his attorney, Dzemil Sabrihafizovic, with the Municipal Court, requesting annulment of what he claims was unlawful dismissal.

Crnkic alleges he was replaced despite achieving positive business results, adding that he was on sick leave when he was axed. A hearing on his complaint is scheduled for February.

If the criminal complaint does not result in charges being pressed, Turkovic has announced a civil lawsuit, demanding return of the resources, will he said would be filed soon.

Toperic said the sum 21,000 euros was “far from sufficient” to cover the amount of work and costs that the Center ran up in preparing the conference, adding that it is not possible now to return the money to the Institute because it has already been spent.

“We have continued undertaking serious efforts aimed at better understanding and helping the health sector in BiH. Our efforts have resulted in a set of recommendations, which we have shared with World Bank staff involved in health sector reform, for which they were grateful,” he added.

“Besides that, during a conference in May, we dedicated a two-hour session to reform of the health sector. We also published the main points from the session in our newsletter to help the public debate on how to reform the health sector,” Toperic continued.

The World Bank confirmed to BIRN BiH that it had received a document containing recommendations related to the health sector from the Center for Transatlantic Relations. “However, we have not initiated any projects on that basis of that,” the bank said.