Minister Darko Horvat: There’ll be Investigations into Construction of Petrinja Buildings

Lauren Simmonds

Copyright Marc Rowlands
Copyright Marc Rowlands

Copyright Marc Rowlands

January the 4th, 2021 – The Petrinja earthquake has called the state of some of this neglected central Croatian town’s (now former) buildings, and Minister Darko Horvat has assured that the issue will be thoroughly investigated.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, the Republic of Croatia now has twelve weeks to prepare a new application to the Sisak-Moslavina County Solidarity Fund, and it will know how much it will receive in about three months, explained Minister Darko Horvat.

He also pointed out that orders have been sent for projects according to which, depending on the affected households, the state will respond in the construction of replacement permanent facilities.

Commenting on how the buildings in Petrinja were built and how some obviously failed rather miserably in meeting all of the typically stringent standards because they collapsed during the quake like a weak house of cards, Minister Darko Horvat said:

“Yes, there will be investigations in to all that, but in order for this not to happen again, we need more systematic preparation – a tender for authorised designers, an institution that will control it all, operational coordinators, so that this would now all be done properly and according to the rules of the profession. The legislative framework is in force and the participants in the construction have full responsibility, and the Law on Construction clearly defines who they are, the people who design, supervise and carry out the construction,” reported N1.

He added that they aren’t yet thinking about who will conduct the investigation because “now the priority is to provide everyone with adequate temporary accommodation and restore some level of normalcy.” Regarding the responsibility of the prefect Ivo Zinic, he said:

“Both Zinic and other actors in Petrinja’s reconstruction will sit down at the table to discuss this. The Central State Office has all the information and therefore invoking anyone’s responsibility is pointless until we’re one hundred percent sure what was happening and who the actors involved were,” stated Minister Darko Horvat.

Let us remind you, architect Ivan Krizic commented on the situation after the earthquake in Sisak-Moslavina County where he said that the laws clearly prescribe the method of construction and that poor construction in Petrinja after the Homeland War can be referred to as nothing less than a crime.

“Such situations simply cannot happen, it’s a crime and the services in charge of crime should react to this,” said Ivan Krizic, and when commenting more concretely on the poor construction in Petrinja, he stated: “According to the laws governing construction, i’s known who is responsible for these omissions. There is no other word for it than the word crime. It prescribes the role of the supervising engineer, the construction manager, the investor… I’m sure that this is a process that must enter the domain of criminal liability research.”

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