President Says PM Most Responsible for Slow Post-quake Reconstruction

“Things are going slowly. If something doesn’t change in a couple of months, fine, but a lot should have been completed by now,” the president said after visiting Glina.

A lot of money has been spent but little is visible, he added.

He said Deputy Prime Minister Tomo Medved, who chairs the government’s task force in charge of dealing with the consequences of last December’s earthquakes, “has no proper influence because he doesn’t decide on key matters.”

There is no justification for the fact that people still depend on donations and that the construction of their houses has not begun, Milanović said.

He mentioned an apartment building in Sisak that has still not been torn down, whose 500 residents still live in container homes.

Asked whom he considered the most responsible for this state of affairs, the president said it was the prime minister and that organisation was poor.

He criticised Plenković’s signing of an agreement on the construction of a gymnasium in Petrinja, saying that “people… need flats, not a gymnasium.”

Milanović said it was necessary to adjust laws and avoid excuses, lamenting that “everything is on hold because of public procurement. That’s unacceptable, it must go faster.”

There is money from donations and the EU, he added.