Zagreb Mayor Tomislav Tomasevic said on Friday, after a rupture of a long-distance water pipeline in Zagreb, that a new water supply grid in the capital would be installed over the next six years and would cost 2 billion kuna (€265 million).

“We must replace all water pipelines and that cannot be done overnight,” he told a press conference when asked about the rupture of a pipeline on Friday morning.

The mayor said this was the second rupture in a year, the first one having happened in the city’s Selska Street and the latest one at the intersection of Strojarska and Drziceva streets. He said that both pipelines were installed in the 1960s and needed to be replaced.

“Since the start of our term, around 200 million kuna has been invested in the water supply network, and we will retroactively draw from the Solidarity Fund an additional 60 million kuna for the pipes that have been repaired,” he said. The mayor stressed that installing a new water supply network in the capital would take six years and cost as much as six billion kuna.

He said that he expected the city to draw an additional 100 million kuna or so from EU funds by the end of the year, noting that he would request a meeting with new Economy Minister Davor Filipovic on this issue.

Tomasevic repeated that 400 workers of the city-owned Zagreb Holding multi-utility conglomerate had not been laid off, as claimed by the media, but that around 100 employees had accepted reassignment while around 100 had opted to go with severance packages.

“We are actually talking about 200 people. At the same time, we have employed 440 new workers in kindergartens alone, and hiring is under way at ZET (city transport company) and the fire service,” he said. Asked about possible increases in prices of municipal services, Tomasevic said that they would depend on inflation and other price increases.

(€1 = 7.55 kuna)