Brother of deputy HDZ president and Deputy Speaker of Parliament Milijan Brkić has founded a host of new companies and used them to take over commercial business premises owned by the City of Zagreb.
Jozo Brkić, the brother of Milijan Brkić, Deputy Speaker of Parliament and deputy HDZ president, has founded 11 companies in the past month, and now owns a total of 19 businesses. All these newly-established enterprises are so-called “simple limited liability companies” (j.d.o.o.), which means that it takes just 10 kuna in initial capital for them to be established, reports Index.hr on January 20, 2018.
For the time being, the only activity of these companies can be seen on the official website of the City of Zagreb, in the section dealing with public competitions for rental of city-owned business premises. Brkić, through these newly-established companies, has acquired at least nine business premises owned by the City of Zagreb. All of the premises are located in the center of Zagreb, and for their rental Brkić will pay a total of 34,298 kuna a month.
Everything started two years ago when first media reports appeared about Jozo Brkić taking over a cafe in the very center of Zagreb, near the Dolac market, based on the tender for the lease of business premises issued by the City of Zagreb. The cafe has 27 square meters, for which Brkić pays 4,762 kuna per month. Brkić won the tender because he exercised his priority rights as a war veteran.
In 2017, Brkić started with the sudden expansion of his business activities and founded a series of companies. On the basis of the announced tenders by the city authorities, Brkić has taken over several business premises in the city center. The pace of establishing new companies increased through the year, reaching the climax this month. On 15 January, for example, he founded four companies, and on Wednesday three more. All companies are “j.d.o.o.” and are registered at the same address. It is expected they will continue to send bids to the competitions for the city-owned premises.
According to unofficial information, most of the premises in question are in bad condition and need reconstruction. Many other interested companies have decided against bidding due to the expected hurdles coming for the Zagreb city administration in terms of finishing the necessary infrastructure or issuing permits. However, it seems that Brkić is convinced that, in his case, that will not be a problem.
Jozo Brkić used to live in Australia for a number of years but later returned to Croatia. He was a spokesman for the United Croatian Clubs and has been organising tours of Croatian singers in Croatian clubs in Australia. Brkić has reportedly organized tours of Mate Bulić, Mladen Grdović, Dražen Zečić and other singers on the continent.
Jozo’s brother Milijan Brkić is currently deputy HDZ president and Deputy Speaker of Parliament, but his influence and power are much greater than could be presumed just from his official titles. He is considered “power behind the throne” in HDZ, the person who in reality controls a large part of party members, which is a result of many years which he spent touring the party branches while he was party’s secretary general.
He was the principal associate of former HDZ president Tomislav Karamarko, and when the party came to power in January 2016, he was considered a candidate to become a minister. Although that did not happen, he remained the key person in the party. After Karamarko unsuccessfully tried to reshuffle the ruling coalition in spring 2016, which caused early parliamentary elections, Brkić forced him to resign and made sure that his preferred candidate for new party leader, Andrej Plenković, would not have opponents running against him. After Plenković’s win as the only candidate, Brkić remained deputy party president, and many consider him even now to be the most influential member of the party leadership and the leader of the party’s right wing.
Milijan Brkić is no stranger when it comes to scandals, the most well-known of which is his university diploma. He first graduated in 2011, but was later discovered that he plagiarized his final thesis and copied most of it (including typos) from a previously published paper. He was told to write a new thesis which he did last year.
