Zagreb Mayor Tomislav Tomasevic said on Sunday, in a comment on the process of post-earthquake reconstruction in Zagreb, that the city administration was willing to help state institutions but that under the law, reconstruction was not the city's responsibility.

“I have been in office for a year and I have already cooperated with two different construction ministers and two different directors of the Reconstruction Fund, and those are the two institutions responsible for the reconstruction of private buildings. It is unbelievable the process is taking so long,” Tomasevic said at the Projekt Ilica: Q’ART event.

Physical Planning, Construction and State Assets Minister Ivan Paladina has announced the opening of construction sites and concrete deadlines but it remains to be seen whether they will be realised, he said.

“If prices are the problem, they should be raised, both in public procurement and in the envisaged programmes,” he added.

The mayor said that everything was in the government’s hands and that it was unacceptable that the reconstruction process was taking so long to start. Maybe all political camps and the government have failed the most in the post-earthquake reconstruction of Zagreb, while in Banija the construction of at least some replacement homes has begun, he stressed.

Asked about the proposal by public transport operators providing regular services for the country-wide introduction of an unlimited HRK 70 monthly pass for public transport, Tomasevic said that such proposals had been made also for Zagreb and neighbouring counties but years had passed and they had not been implemented.

“The proposal is good in principle, but problems arise when local authorities, city companies and transport operators have to agree concrete tariffs and who will be in charge,” he said, adding that Zagreb would accept the proposal, depending on the details of the agreement.