Commission for Prevention of Conflict of Interest rules against members of former government.
The Commission for Prevention of Conflict of Interest decided on Thursday that former Defence Minister Ante Kotromanovć will have to pay 30,000 kunas because he accepted a privately paid plane to go from Zagreb to Mali Lošinj and back, reports Poslovni.hr on April 7, 2016.
The Commission found that Kotromanović was in a conflict of interest and that the fact that the small plane was paid by a private source from Russia could result in him having a dependent relationship with the company which paid for the flight. Kotromanović has not exercised his right to give a formal statement about the case.
Similarly, the Commission has decided to sanction 23 former officials because, in addition to their regular duties in the government, they were at the same time members of management boards of the Agency for Hydrocarbons and the Agency for Investments and Competitiveness, as well as of the management board of the Advisory Service.
The Commission found that the officials, including former Finance Minister Slavko Linić, former Deputy Prime Minister Branko Grčić, former Entrepreneurship Minister Gordan Maras, and former Finance Minister Boris Lalovac, were not in conflict of interest, but did formally violate the law since these agencies at that time of their appointment were not on the list of companies and other legal entities which are of strategic and special interest for Croatia.
Grčić came to the meeting and on behalf of all the officials said that “if there was a violation, it was due to the lack of information and was not deliberate nor personal”. The officials were punished with fines ranging from official warnings to 4,000 kunas.
The Commission also found that former Assistant Minister of Veterans Affairs Bojan Glavašević did not act conscientiously when he used cargo racks from a car owned by the Ministry for his private purposes. However, in this situation he had not damaged the Ministry so there will be no sanctions for him.
