It seems that irregularities have spanned multiple governments.
Prime Minister Andrej Plenković said on Monday that new cases of irregularities regarding official travel expenses have been discovered in the government office and that he had asked State Prosecutor Dinko Cvitan to investigate the case, reports Jutarnji List on March 6, 2017.
Prime Minister announced the news during the press conference which he held together with Cvitan. Plenković said that, after the initial scandal with fictitious travel expenses broke about a month ago, he asked officials to investigate whether there were other similar cases.
Due to irregularities with travel expenses paid for fictitious travel of three advisors of former Prime Minister Zoran Milanović, his former Chief of Staff and current Member of Parliament Tomislav Saucha was arrested on 10 February. He spent a week in detention in order not to be able to influence witnesses during investigation. The prosecution suspects that Saucha took more than 540,000 kuna in the period from November 2013 to January 2016. It claims that Saucha forged 117 travel documents in order to be able to pay for travel per diems of Milanović’s advisors who never received the money nor did they travel anywhere.
Today, Plenković said that the information that he has received suggest that there has been a number of other cases of irregularities and illegalities regarding travel expenses, including after the term of Milanović’s government ended, which would mean during the government of Tihomir Orešković, and even possibly during Plenković’s own government.
Plenković said that a few days ago he informed the State Attorney about the new information and doubts that other crimes might have been committed. He has asked Cvitan to investigate all travel expenses paid during the last several years.
After latest events, Plenković announced that in the future all travel expenses and per diems would be paid on bank accounts and not in cash. “We will certainly change the current system and all advances for expenses will be paid directly through bank transfers, which can completely prevent any manipulation”, said Prime Minister.
N1 television has reported that irregularities with travel expenses have continued even under the current government.
If true, the latest information would seem to improve position of Saucha, who has denied any wrongdoing. If the irregularities continued after January 2016, when new government took over, that would suggest that perpetrators should be found among non-political officials tasked with paying out the expenses, rather than with any of political appointees who come and go with each new government.
