April 30, 2020 – Beware the Croatian inspector – a new series courtesy of Glas Poduzetnika (Voice of Entrepreneurs), highlighting a Croatian business reality that helps kill growth, profit, and entrepreneurship. The college of safety.
I have seen them operating all over the country over the last 18 years, the most feared visitors to Croatia’s cafes, restaurants, and other businesses – the Croatian inspector.
As with many corrupt countries, the role of the inspector should be to make sure that the rules are being adhered to in the particular area they specialise in – sanitary, fiscal, etc – but in reality, the prime motivation is to find ways to fill the State coffers and their own. Allegedly.
I heard SO many stories of inspections where perfectly run businesses end up paying thousands in fines, some of it justified, much of it grossly unfair. And there is an old truism here:
If the Croatian inspector comes to visit, he will find something, even if there is nothing there.
It is a subject that I have wanted to cover for years, but I never had quite the right material. Until now.
Huge thanks to those very proactive chaps at Glas Poduzetnika, who are really becoming a force for change to be reckoned with. A really great initiative. In one of their latest moves, they have been collecting some of their members’ experiences with the Croatian inspector, to highlight the issue and the realities of doing business in Beautiful Croatia
Story #5: College of Safety
For the Corporation and overseeing the implementation of health and safety measures in it, the inspection is always announced at least 3–5 days in advance. However, in some sectors, they also had severe injuries, lack of protective equipment, delays in medical check-ups, and machine inspection deadlines, but the company never ever paid a fine. At the inspectors’ request, and “recommendations” to remedy the deficiencies, an official credit card would immediately be pulled out, and they would get whatever they wanted with obligatory lunch in one of the fancier restaurants in Zagreb. They would also get watches, shoes for their wives that were never under 4,000 kn, the most expensive mobile phones and informatics equipment for them and their whole families. They were also “taking care of” exams for some employees in the company, on the recently closed study program.
The College for Safety, a college they regularly collaborated with and publicly praised to have their shares, and which was for a long time the primary requirement for the employment in the Inspectorate, also received a prohibition of work. The students of the final program years, without the experience and without mandatory 5 years of work in the sector, were getting positions of the work inspectors and the higher work inspectors. If someone would complain about the problem or irregularity at the college, they didn’t stand any chance because the family members of the founders and dean were employed in the Agency for Higher Education.
That program from 2010 became a temple of sexist outbursts, strange night exams and marking grades in the deanery along with the plate of prosciutto for the chosen company. A few hundred students literally got a diploma if they said they worked in a state company or have someone in the Inspectorate whose headquarters were in the street Ivana Visine, up until recently. From 2002 to 2005, they went so far with diplomas that some, even though the college did not have the rights for Master’s Degree, were issued as such. If I remember well, some of them had their Magister title taken away later, but without much news in press and media.
Students who did not agree to the immoral games of professors, dean, and inspectors did not graduate within the term, and about a hundred students never got the opportunity to graduate, to join another program, to go to another college or get a discharge letter. A few years ago, the chief and responsible fire inspector and fire forensic expert was also one of the regular professors in this college. His financial situation was not so particular, his friends lent him money to get a used weaker car. However, from circles very close to the subject, we found out that right around the time of the Kornati tragedy, he bought a villa at the seaside, an apartment in Zagreb, and a higher-class car.
All of this for only 3 years as a college professor, inspector for explosives, but also a former employee of the Ministry of Interior? No, the subject worked illegally for grandmasters on jobs for work safety, three main ones, and some connected companies that are lords and masters in Croatia, along with the inspectors who tolerate their grabbings in inventing the documentation related to work safety, fire, and environment. At the same time, they steal money from entrepreneurs by making them create documents that have no legal basis. But, they all share the money, and if a company does not want to comply and make any of the papers or they break a contract, the next day, they have two inspectors visiting. They will charge what’s not needed and get at least 3,000 kn more each, because they can do everything and say it so, especially during the season at the seaside. Then the grabbing in indescribable, between 5,000 and 15,000 kn, without the money order. If you ask for a money order, you will receive it with a demand for double the amount.
Beware the Croatian Inspector is a new daily series (yes, there really is that much material) which you can follow here.
If you have a Croatian inspector story you would like to share with the Glas Poduzetnika team (in English or Croatian), you can do so via [email protected] Subject TCN inspector.
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