ZAGREB, October 29, 2018 – The leader of the opposition MOST party Božo Petrov said on Monday in a mocking comment on the book entitled “Agrokor: Slom Ortačkog Kapitalizma (Agrokor: The Collapse of Crony Capitalism, in an unofficial translation) by Martina Dalić, former economy minister, that it in fact presented the “beatification of Saint Martina, the patron of free market.”
The book is to be officially launched on Monday afternoon, and the event prompted Petrov to say that the whole story is “about the beatification of the patron saint of free market.”
Petrov also ironically commented that the process of “beatification” was led by Gojko Drljača, a reporter and columnist in the Jutarnji List daily of the Hanza Media publishing house which was why it would offer 45,000 free-of-charges copies of that “hagiography” about Martina Dalić.
When the Agrokor crisis broke out, the MOST party was a junior partner in the ruling coalition, and in her book Martina Dalić writes that it was Božo Petrov of the MOST who had proposed that money collected from taxpayers should be used to bail out the Konzum retail chain in the Agrokor Group.
In response to these claims, Petrov said today that there had been several models proposed how to salvage the group, however, the model proposed by Dalić, who was at the time economy minister, prevailed. “In comparison to all other models, our model did not include the services of consultants, favouritism in awarding jobs and roll-up loans. And, let us not be beguiled by their arguments, each model is in fact state interventionism, including what they those in power have done in addressing the Agrokor crisis,” said Petrov.
As for the announced participation of the Croatian National Bank (HNB) Governor Boris Vujčić at today’s launch of the book, Petrov said “they are all the same.” “What we could see from statements by ‘Saint Martina’, Governor Vujčić also cooperated with them, while we had no idea about that. They are all the same,” the MOST party chief said.
If you are interested in reading more about the Agrokor affair, click here.
