We Can! MP Tomislav Tomasevic told the press those houses were not built according to regulations. “According to information from the ground, it’s not just a few cases but a large number of buildings.”
He said “we are talking about systematic crime during post-war reconstruction,” recalling that the State Attorney’s Office (DORH) recently began inquiries. Given that many legal experts have warned about the expiry of the statute of limitations for criminal accountability, he said DORH’s investigation “will be just a smokescreen.”
Due to DORH’s inquiries, neither the press nor the public can obtain data from the State Office for Reconstruction and Housing, but parliament can probe and establish political responsibility, Tomasevic said, adding that the work of a parliamentary inquiry commission was public and “the public can get all the key data in that way.”
He said green-left bloc MPs spent the last week volunteering in quake-hit areas without making political criticisms in public because it was not the time.
Now that the situation on the ground is slowly stabilising, he said, it is time to draw the line and see what the state has and has not done right in responding to this disaster, “because we must learn lessons for the future.”
Protocols must be prepared in advance for such situations instead of improvising, he said, adding that he was not talking about the response of society and non-state actors but about civil protection which, he said, should coordinate all other services and non-stake actors on the ground in situations like this.
MP Sandra Bencic said “it’s obvious to everyone that institutions are not run adequately” and that the consequences in this case “are the endangered safety and lives of fellow citizens.”
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