The decision to award concession for Croatia’s best-known beach to a company with no employees has caused controversy.
Minister of Sea, Transport and Infrastructure Oleg Butković said on Thursday that his Ministry has already requested all the documentation from the Split-Dalmatia County to determine the legality of the procedure on decision to grant the concession for the Zlatni Rat beach in Bol on the island of Brač, reports Večernji List on April 20, 2017.
Prime Minister Andrej Plenković sent a message during a cabinet meeting on Thursday to Butković that he expected the issue of the concession for the Zlatni Rat beach to be resolved as soon as possible. The decision to award the concession for Croatia’s most famous beach to a company with no employees has caused controversy just a month before the local elections in May.
Yesterday, Plenković ordered the Ministry of the Sea, Transport and Infrastructure to urgently review the decision to award the concession for the next 15 years to Sport B company from Zagreb. Butković told reporters that the Ministry would certainly have done that even without a prime ministerial order. “Appeals process will surely be launched. The Ministry yesterday requested all documentation from the County to determine the legality of the proceedings. We will see how things stand next week,” he said.
The decision to grant the concession to a company with not employees or revenues has provoked an angry reaction from people of Bol and opposition parties in the County Assembly. The locals who protested in front of the County building announced they would institute a blockade of the beach. Mayor of Bol, Tihomir Marinković, said he would appeal to the Administrative Court.
Butković did not want to state his position, but just said that the concession procedure “must have some legality.” “I believe the County Department of Maritime Affairs has conducted a lawful procedure. If not, the decision will have to be cancelled. I do not have enough information to say something more specific,” he added. “The result of this may be to confirm the decision, to annul the whole public competition, or to annul just the decision,” he explained.
Asked if the Ministry would carry out a broader revision of concessions for the Adriatic coast, he said that the Ministry was already doing it because, whenever concessions are granted, in most cases the appeals process is launched by those who lost,” said Butković.
