Construction Minister Ivan Paladina on Wednesday informed the parliament's committee on physical planning and construction about the process of post-earthquake reconstruction and the reconstruction plan, with opposition members of the committee expressing dissatisfaction with the process.

Paladina said that his ministry, the Fund for Reconstruction and the Central State Office for Reconstruction and Housing had received 28,000 requests for reconstruction, of which 14,000 had been processed. A total of 11,000 have been approved and 3,000 have been rejected, he said.

So far the reconstruction of close to 5,000 buildings in Sisak-Moslavina County and Zagreb has been financed through various programmes and slightly more than HRK 200 million has been spent, the minister said.

Non-structural reconstruction has been underway on 900 buildings in Sisak-Moslavina County.

Some 600 buildings have been removed, 30 construction sites for the construction of replacement homes or seismic retrofitting are active, including 10 in Zagreb, and another 40 are being prepared.

Paladina said that the seismic retrofitting of apartment buildings organised by the relevant authorities had started in Zagreb while seismic retrofitting organised by property owners themselves had been completed on the first few apartment buildings.

The construction of 10 apartment buildings in Petrinja, Glina and Topusko will begin soon, he said.

Reconstruction by property owners should be encouraged

The minister noted that a campaign would be launched to inform citizens and encourage them to organise reconstruction work on their properties on their own.

He said that the pace of non-structural reconstruction was good but that the process of seismic retrofitting should be stepped up.

Opposition MPs unhappy with pace of reconstruction

Committee member Marija Selak-Raspudic (Independent) said that data on reconstruction was manipulated and presented depending on what was more favourable for the government.

Zvane Brumnic (Independent) said that nothing had been done in the past two years and that the state was responsible also for land registries not being in order.

Ursa Raukar-Gamulin (Mozemo! platform) said that citizens’ perception of reconstruction was that it was too slow.

She asked the minister if Croatia would manage to use money approved under the Solidarity Fund by the set deadline, June 2023, to which Paladina said that he could not guarantee it but that it was realistic even though it would require a lot of work.

The minister is expected to submit his next report to the committee in six months.