Surprisingly, MPs did not spend all the money they could.
Croatian Parliament was last year extremely frugal and “saved” as much as 10.2 million kuna, which is the difference between 131.8 million kuna planned and 121.6 million kuna spent, reports Večernji List on March 30, 2016.
Parliament introduced various savings measures, which resulted in lower than planned execution of the budget, explained Parliament. As much as four million kuna was saved on gross salaries while the total expenses for employees were reduced by as much as 5.2 million kuna. “In terms of salaries, savings were achieved by the decrease in the base salary for high ranking officials”, explained the Parliamentary Media Service. The budget provided 79.5 million kuna for gross salaries in Parliament, while only 75.6 million kuna was actually spent. This amount includes salaries for employees and for 151 members of Parliament.
In the past year, Parliament reduced expenditures by about two million kuna for various services like phone bills, publicity and information services, rents and leases. Instead of 12.2 million kuna, it spent just 10.3 million kuna.
Almost all budgetary items have brought some savings or at the very least there was no overspending. For example, 360,000 kuna was planned for the maintenance of the building of the National University in Otočac, which is the exact amount that was spent. These budgetary items also included the ZAVNOH Memorial Centre, which is owned by the state and is available for use to Parliament.
For one budgetary item, events marking the memory of the victims of all totalitarian and authoritarian regimes, 100,000 kunas were allocated, but the actual amount spent was zero. Parliament explained that first it was planned that the European Day of Remembrance of Victims of All Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes on 23 August would be marked by a more extensive event, but former Parliament Speaker Josip Leko decided to mark it instead by laying wreaths and lighting candles at two memorials of victims of the Ustasha and Communist regimes.
