As Poslovni Dnevnik/Jadranka Dozan writes on the 22nd of August, 2019, in her four and a half years in office as Croatian President, Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović and the President’s Office cost Croatia’s taxpayers 155.8 million kuna, while in the same period, 186 million kuna was spent on former president Ivo Josipović during his term.
The Croatian Government’s budget expenditures reached 66.9 billion kuna in the first half of this year, and this figure suggests spending is within the previously announced annual plan of 140 billion kuna.
The half-yearly realisation is therefore now at 47.7 percent of the annual plan, but as the budget for 2019 has been increased, when compared to last year and with those 67 billion kuna included, it represents an increase of about five billion kuna in total.
Most departments and government bodies are currently spending at a pace slightly below what was initially planned. Some of this is likely to do with the Ministry of Finance and the troublesome Uljanik guarantees and the European Parliament elections.
Since the first elections are presidential ones, and President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović is often under the auspices of the public precisely through the prism of costs (especially when it comes to her travel), it remains to be noted that the Office of the President of the Republic of Croatia’s expenditures amounted to 15.7 million in the first six months of 2019, equal to about 240,000 kuna less than last year.
As previously mentioned, when considering the entire budget mandate so far, President Grabar-Kitarović’s office has cost Croatia’s taxpayers a total of 155.8 million kuna over the last four and a half years.
At the same time, for the four-and-a-half-year term of former President Ivo Josipović, the Office of the President cost the taxpayer 30 million kuna more, with costs of 186 million kuna (208 million kuna in all of those five years).
Thus, Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović’s office has annually spent about seven million kuna less than the predecessor.
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