The wasteful spending of public money in Croatia is so widespread that it is difficult to select the worst case: from doubled traffic bollards to billions spent on companies losing money, which examples are your favourites? The Lipa taxpayer association will present the results of its latest project on Tuesday – The Black Book of Public Money Expenditure for 2018 – and organise a round table discussion with prominent economists, reports Poslovni.hr on March 11, 2019.
In the last year, Lipa has collected some of the most interesting cases of wasteful spending of public money in Croatia, such as the so-called free public transportation in Zagreb during the Advent period and endless amounts of public subsidies given to failing companies.
“The cases of non-transparent and inefficient spending of taxpayers' money are commonplace in Croatia. The way the authorities, experts and voters approach this subject will represent the basis which will determine our future. If the irresponsible spending of taxpayers' money continues at this level of intensity, it's clear that Croatia has a negligible chance of joining the community of developed and prosperous European Union countries,” the Lipa taxpayer association said in its announcement.
Based on the analysis of the selected cases, Lipa has drafted several recommendations for better public money management, which will also be presented at the event.
The presentation of the Black Book for 2018 will be held on March 12, 2019, at the Croatian Journalism House in Zagreb. The Black Book will be presented by the president of the Lipa taxpayers association Davor Huić and the NGO’s executive director Zoran Low. The roundtable will be attended by Zoran Löw, Davor Huić, economist Velimir Šonje and economist Vuk Vuković.
On its website, Lipa says it is funded exclusively by memberships and donations. It has popularised many topics such as public debt, the level of the tax burden and the way politicians spend taxpayers’ hard-earned money with their activities. By initiating a petition against the property tax, which was signed by 150,000 people, Lipa has blocked the implementation of the already adopted Local Tax Act, in its real estate taxes part. It has five goals: lower taxes, smaller government, transparency, efficiency, and reduction of public debt.
More news about public spending can be found in the Business section.
Translated from Poslovni.hr.
