Searches of Vojin Mijatović’s Ministry Open New Investigation Into Grant Allocation Worth Around 600,000 Dollars
Police officers from SIPA and the Sarajevo Canton Interior Ministry carried out coordinated searches in Sarajevo and Mostar under orders from the Special Department of the Supreme Court of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and under the supervision of the acting federal prosecutor from the Special Department of the Federal Prosecutor’s Office. The searches included the official premises of the Federal Ministry of Development, Entrepreneurship and Crafts, headed by Minister Vojin Mijatović, as well as official documentation and computer equipment used by the minister, his advisers and associates.
The orders also covered searches of certain individuals and legal entities that were part of a consortium of beneficiaries of grant funds awarded through a public call issued by the ministry in March 2025. The total value of those grant funds was around 600,000 US dollars. The investigation therefore centers on the procedure through which those funds were allocated, the documentation linked to the public call and the role of the consortium that received the money.
The case is connected to the public competition titled “Development of the start-up ecosystem,” which the ministry announced in March 2025. According to the reports, the call was worth 1.2 million convertible marks and remained open for only nine days, including a weekend. The decision was allegedly made very quickly, described by both winners and those who filed complaints as having been made “in half a day.” After a series of objections regarding the regularity of the procedure, the owners of the Sarajevo IT company Bloomteq filed a criminal complaint against Minister Mijatović.
One of Bloomteq’s owners, Kerim Balić, previously publicly presented a chronology of the case and the reasons why a complaint was submitted to POSKOK against Mijatović and, as he said, “ten more people.” Balić claimed that Mijatović announced the public call on March 21, 2025, and that the nine-day deadline was not enough time to collect the required documentation. He said Bloomteq nevertheless applied because it already had prepared documents from other projects, while suspecting from the call itself and the deadline that the procedure had been tailored in advance.
According to Balić’s account cited in the reports, the results were published on April 1, 2025, the second day of Bajram, because the previous Monday was a non-working day. Bloomteq came second among the two companies that met the conditions. The company submitted a formal objection on April 9, but it was rejected on April 11, and the company was not granted transparent access to all applications. Balić said Bloomteq first publicly expressed doubts about the call and its results on April 25 and requested answers, while Mijatović signed the contract with the winning consortium on April 28.
The reports also cite Balić’s claim that, seven days after the company publicly raised questions, a tax inspection arrived at Bloomteq. He further claimed that a company owner with private links to Mijatović had, during a podcast appearance, effectively confirmed that Mijatović had promised a public call would be issued for them and that 1.2 million convertible marks of public money would be allocated. After that podcast, according to Balić, Foundation 787, which had been part of the winning consortium, withdrew from the consortium because of suspicions of corruption.
The current searches therefore represent a new procedural step in an affair that had already raised questions about the speed of the public call, the short application deadline, the selection process, the handling of complaints and the transparency of access to documentation. What has been officially confirmed is that investigators searched the ministry’s premises, seized or reviewed official documents and computer equipment, and also searched persons and legal entities connected to the consortium that received the grant funds.
The case has also been mentioned in the wider context of controversies surrounding the Government of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Separately, investigative actions are ongoing in the case known as “Spengavanje,” in which federal prosecutors allege abuse of office and trading in influence involving several officials and public-sector figures. The reports describe these cases as part of a broader set of affairs affecting the federal government, although the searches of Mijatović’s ministry specifically relate to the public call and grant allocation from March 2025.
