Homeland War veteran Mario Vrbanić has revealed a new scandal in the Ministry of Veterans’ Affairs led by Minister Tomo Medved. Ha has shown text messages which he received from Assistant Veterans Minister Nenad Križić, reports Telegram on January 14, 2019.
The 49-year-old veteran said that he lives in a rented apartment in Vukovar and has no permanent income. He first received countless promises that the problem would be solved, and then Assistant Minister Križić told him that he would talk to the State Secretary at the Central Office for Reconstruction and Housing Nikola Mažar "to turn a blind eye" and allow Vrbanić to break into one of the empty apartments in the town.
In support of his claims, Vrbanić has shown text messages which he exchanged with the assistant minister. In the messages, they discuss whether a 45-square-metre apartment is large enough.
Križić has initially refused to provide answers to journalists who asked him about the scandal. When they finally met, Križić spent half of the conversation explaining how much effort he was investing in providing welfare to war veterans. He also claimed that Vrbanić would get all that he was entitled to as soon as certain status questions were resolved. Asked how it was possible that Vrbanić's war veteran status was still unresolved, given that he has had a Homeland War Memorial Plaque since 1995, Križić replied, "Who does not have that?"
Križić admitted that he did send the text messages to Vrbanić, but claimed that these were actually Vrbanić's messages to him, which he then just forwarded back to him. However, the correspondence shows that the messages came to Vrbanić from Križić's mobile phone.
Križić was also asked whether it was true that he had urged Vrbanić to thank Veterans’ Affairs Minister Medved for helping him resolve the housing issue. “Vrbanić called me after a meeting in Zagreb where we discussed his housing issue and said that everything had been solved. Then I advised him to call Minister Medved and thank him,” explained Križić.
More news on war veterans can be found in our Politics section.
Translated from Telegram (reported by Drago Hedl).
