ZAGREB, June 30, 2020 – Non-governmental organisations Green Action and BIOM held a performance outside the Energy and Environment Ministry on Tuesday saying that Minister Tomislav Coric should hold to account for influence-peddling in the Krs-Padjen wind farm scandal.
“Minister Coric’s political responsibility in the Krs-Padjen scandal is unquestionable and there are strong indications of his criminal responsibility for evidently unreasonable spending of public funds,” the NGOs said.
They warned of multiple damages done as a consequence of Coric’s political decisions. They claimed that the minister “in cahoots with the accused investors, has squandered HRK 1.2 billion of taxpayers’ money, thus destroying our renewable future in the form of decentralised, local systems of renewable energy sources.”
“Without Coric’s decision, which contradicts expert opinion, the accused investors would not have been able to continue the project based on the old system of tariffs,” Enes Cerimagic (Green Action) said. He claimed that HRK 1.2 billion in incentives more would have to be paid than the investor would have been entitled to under the new tariff system.
“Had Minister Coric abided by the law and asked for an assessment of the impact on the ecological network, the investor’s approval to buy electricity at higher subsidised prices would have expired and the project would have been subject to the new tariff,” Cerimagic said, adding that Coric thus caused multiple damages to the state, environment, nature and the budget.
Cerimagic said that the HRK 1.2 billion that has been squandered could have been sufficient for solar systems to supply 30,000 households.”
