Subsidies for employment of persons with disabilities continue to drain the budget

The so-called professional rehabilitation of people with disabilities continues to drain the state budget - in seven months, 23,7 million euros were spent, while the plan was 14,5 million euros. In other words, the planned amount was exceeded by 63 percent and is nine times higher than seven years ago.

In the past three years, "Vijesti" has published several articles pointing to abuses of the right for employers to receive a subsidy for an employee with a disability, depending on the degree of disability, ranging from 50 to 70 percent of the gross amount.

The fraud is reflected in the fact that commissions in some cities such as Berane and Rožaje issue an unnaturally large number of decisions on determining disability, which is why people with disabilities in these cities make up 20 percent of the total population.

The current law on professional rehabilitation, and the new one that is in the adoption procedure, do not have limits on the amount of subsidies like in other countries, which is why employers report "persons with disabilities" with salaries of up to eight thousand euros, regardless of their education, job position, and performance.

That is why the amounts of these subsidies are increasing year after year, and over the past seven years they have increased from 2,7 million to 33 million last year. At the current pace of applications, the sum will exceed 40 million euros this year, meaning that the Compensation Fund, which has a budget of 30 million for these purposes, could go bankrupt as early as September.

Although the new laws in this area were prepared following the Croatian model, they do not have the main items that should prevent these multi-million dollar abuses: they do not have a limit on the amount of subsidies, they do not have an obligation for the employer to prove the need for that employee, there is no obligation for the employer to measure the employee's performance on the basis of which they claim a subsidy from the state, and there is no provision for a review of decisions issued so far on determining disability.

This Fund is part of the Employment Agency, which is therefore in trouble. The item for the Agency's core business - active employment policy measures - amounted to only 240 thousand euros for seven months, while the plan was 2,08 million.