Member of Parliament Nikola Grmoja of the opposition populist Most party on Friday criticised the latest measure to test school children for COVID, which would cost 70 million kuna, saying that the only reason why this measure was being introduced was for someone to make a profit out of it.

“Minister of Science and Education Radovan Fuchs, the government and the national COVID response team are giving HRK 70 million to have children tested. They will be distributing tests to parents, yet they do not have to test their children at all. Why? So that someone in the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) can benefit from it,” Grmoja said in the parliament.

“Our schools do not even have the bare necessities and our teachers have low salaries, yet you are throwing away money on these tests so someone can make a profit,” he added.

Stressing that it was time for these ridiculous measures to end, he recalled that Finance Minister Zdravko Maric warned today that public services would be paralysed due to the spread of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus because of the huge numbers of public servants on sick leave.

Grmoja said that even though COVID certificates were mandatory in state administration and public services, this was the result of government policies.