October 27, 2022 - After the arrests of several former ministers made a big, but short splash on the Croatian political scene, now USKOK has published the details of the indictments against them.

The four former ministers from the Plenković government in the focus of the investigation are Darko Horvat, Boris Milošević, Tomislav Tolušić and Josip Aladrović. There are also four other suspects in two branches of the investigation, launched due to alleged illegalities with the awarding of funding.

Without specifying the identities of the defendants, USKOK reported that, in addition to the four ministers, it had filed indictments against Horvat's assistant Ana Mandac, former State Secretary of the Ministry of Regional Development Velimir Žunac, Director of the Administration for Assisted Areas Katica Mišković and Županja Mayor Damir Juzbašić.

The prosecutor's office announced that eight defendants are charged with misuse of position and authority, inciting and assisting in the misuse of position and authority, trading in influence, and assisting in trading in influence. Uskok specifies that Horvat is accused of putting his assistant Ana Mandac in charge of implementing the Program "Development of small and medium-sized enterprises and crafts in areas inhabited by members of national minorities". 2.65 million kuna in grants was awarded to "business entities" in which he was personally interested or at the instigation of Tolušić, Žunac, Mišković and Milošević. At the same time, USKOK adds, Mandac, according to Horvat's orders and the requests of Tolušić, Žunac, Mišković and Milošević and third unidentified persons, made a spreadsheet with the amounts of grants and economic entities to which these funds are allocated and then instructed the expert services to ensure the signing of the payment contract incentive.

USKOK's indictment also states that Horvat has used the authority of a minister and previously a member of parliament, through Ana Mandac, from January 2018 to April 2019, and asked the then-director of the Croatian Pension Insurance Institute (HZMO) Josip Aladrović to favor the employment of a certain candidate in HZMO. Aladrović, USKOK points out, then sent through Mandac the questionnaires which were to be used in the selection process to the candidate, which gave her an advantage over the other candidates. After several additional corrupt steps, HZMO ended up signing an employment contract with her for an indefinite period. According to the media, the candidate/employee in question is Lidija Sinković, whose father is Horvat's friend. Ana Mandac is also accused of asking Aladrović, at Juzbašić's request, to favor another candidate in order to hire her at HZMO, which Aladrović did the same way as previously described. After the candidate achieved the maximum number of points, she was also employed on an indefinite contract. The media previously reported that this part of the indictments refers to Petra Periša.

ZAGREB, 19 Feb (Hina) - A source close to the ongoing investigation into possible abuse of power by a few office-holders told Hina on Saturday morning that the police were conducting the probe into Minister Darko Horvat and Deputy Prime Minister Boris Milošević, however, Labour Minister Josip Aladrović, was not implicated.

The source said that another two suspects are Velimir Žunac, a state secretary in the regional development ministry, and Katica Mišković, who is at the helm of the office for economically assisted areas.

Furthermore, a former minister Tomislav Tolušić, is also among those suspected of abuse of power.

On Saturday morning, media outlets reported that the police were searching the flat of Construction Minister Darko Horvat in connection with his former aide Ana Mandac implicated in the scandal dubbed wind parks where the main suspect is a former state secretary Josipa Rimac.

According to the unofficial information, the ongoing probe relates to the allocation of grants under an aid scheme for crafts and SMEs in the areas populated by ethnic minorities.

There are speculations that the disbursement of grants did not follow the criteria, and it has not yet been revealed the amount of the concerned money.

For more, check out our politics section.

ZAGREB, July 9, 2020 - Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic whose Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) scored a convincing victory in Sunday's parliamentary election, said in an interview with the Vecernji List daily on Thursday that a majority of the ministers in his current cabinet would be in the next government.

"Let us conduct internal consultations for a few more days so as to complete the new architecture of the Croatian government. There will be fewer ministerial departments, which means fewer ministers. We are going to conduct some mergers, taking into account the functionality and closeness of the areas of responsibility of certain ministries," said Plenkovic, who is to be the Prime Minister-designate after the elections.

"We are looking for solutions that will help us to form a compact and easy-to-manage government," Plenkovic said, adding that in the outgoing government there were 20 ministers plus prime minister, and this number of people made it more difficult to coordinate the cabinet.

Considering the ambition of ethnic minorities' parliamentary deputies to have their representatives in the next government, Plenkovic said that this topic had not yet been discussed.

As far as other partners of the next government are concerned, the HDZ policy is to talk with parties that have similar worldviews and with those who have programmes congruent with the HDZ platform.

"My aim as the prime minister and the HDZ leader is to reduce tensions and divisions in the Croatian society," Plenkovic said adding that he could hold talks with all protagonists and that it was his duty to talk to everyone.

"It will be good that some other people also widen their margin for talks and communication technologies. If tensions are defused and if one scraps concepts that are not normal, then we can hold talks," Plenkovic said in reference to the possibility of the HDZ cooperation with the Homeland Movement party led by Miroslav Skoro and the Bridge party led by Bozo Petrov. Plenkovic said that cooperation could be possible provided that the two parties gave up their blackmailing rhetoric.