Kebo said that the main reason for this was the reduction of international aid and donations in 2004 and the reduction of funds for that purpose in the country's entity budgets by about 15 million convertible marks in comparison to last year.
Kebo was speaking to reporters in the Bosnian Serb capital Banja Luka after meeting the ministers of the Bosnian Serb entity Republika Srpska and the Muslim-Croat Federation in charge of refugees, Jasmin Samardzic and Edin Music respectively.
According to figures from the UNHCR, more than a million refugees have returned to Bosnia-Herzegovina since the signing of the Dayton agreement that ended the war in the country in 1995.
Kebo said that the UNHCR figures did not reflect the actual situation, adding that the true number of refugees and displaced persons who have returned could be established by a population census and a new registration of refugees and displaced persons.
About 15,000 families have registered again as refugees and displaced persons in Republika Srpska and about 9,000 in the Federation, and these figures are considerably smaller than official estimates of competent ministries.
Kebo announced that a conference on the return of refugees would take place in Sarajevo on January 31 and that it would be attended by representatives of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia-Montenegro.