More than 20,000 employees at Bosnia and Herzegovina's government bodies and state agencies will stop getting their salaries at the end of September if officials from the ethnic Serb-dominated Republika Srpska (RS) half of the country keep blocking the work of the central government in Sarajevo, Croatian state agency Hina reported on Thursday citing local media.

Such an outcome would would “deepen the political crisis” Hina said.

Government bodies and agencies in that country now function based on decisions on temporary financing made by the country’s Council of Ministers every three months. This situation is a result of the fact that the country’s Parliament still has not adopted the 2021 budget due to the internal political disputes.

The current three-month temporary financing period expires in late September, so unless a new decision is made, no payments will be possible, i.e. the central government will be de-funded. This refers to salaries of government officials and numerous employees in ministries, bureaux, and agencies.

The current deadlock came after former High Representative, Valentin Inzko, used his power to imposed changes to the country’s criminal code to outlaw the denial of Srebrenica genocide and other war crimes committed during the 1992-95 Bosnian War. The move, vehemently opposed by RS authorities, led to its regional assembly ordering officials from that entity to boycott the work of central government bodies until Inzko’s decision is overturned.

Because of this, any decision-making abilities of the central government has been blocked since early August, as the boycott has effectively paralyzed the Bosnian tripartite Presidency, the country’s Parliament, as well as the Council of Ministers – the only body that has the authority to make decisions on extending temporary financing.

The ethnic Serb member of the Bosnian Presidency and longtime leader of RS, Milorad Dodik, earlier this week announced that the boycott would continue “regardless of the cost” and vowed that it would keep going until Inzko’s decision gets overturned.

He added that he would still attend meetings of of the Bosnian Presidency, the three-member body which functions as a collective head of state for Bosnia and Herzegovina, where Dodik sits along with ethnic Croat Zeljko Komsic and ethnic Bosniak Sefik Dzaferovic. However, Dodik said he would prevent any decision-making by the “country’s leadership.”