They would miss meetings and fail to put people in charge. As a result, most of the companies are still controlled by politicians who Western officials say have systematically diverted much of their income to friends, political parties or their own bank accounts. Other signs of economic mismanagement are easy to spot. But little has been done to stop it. In the past month alone, for example, the ruling Muslim party diverted thousands of dollars from a fund for Bosnian widows and orphans to purchase a campaign vehicle, Barry said.
Many officials say Western overseers here have been slow to respond to documented improprieties.
The ruling Muslim party, for example, appointed well-connected businessman Ramiz Dzaferovic as Bosnia's top tax official in May 1997, a few months before a company he had directed was convicted of tax evasion. But he was not removed until this summer, when numerous employees filed criminal charges against him alleging illicit diversions of money and he tried to shut down Bosnia's only independent publisher. The aim was partly to reduce emigration by roughly 10,000 high school students every year. Rector Nezad Mulabegovic and the university's board of trustees, including the prime minister and the president's son, had other ambitions, according to criminal charges filed in September in the Sarajevo canton court. He has resigned but says he is innocent.