The new Zagreb leadership is now focused on the city's finances, which are not in good shape, said newly elected Zagreb Mayor Tomislav Tomasevic, adding however that they would be stabilised as soon as possible, and promising there would be enough funds for the wages of the employees on the city's payroll.

Addressing the press, Tomasevic said that after studying the 2,000-page reports on the city’s finances over this weekend, the new city leadership concluded that a lot of their energy would be spent on stabilising the city’s finances.

The financial situation is a consequence of the “financial irresponsibility of the previous authorities in 2019, 2020, and in 2021 until the local elections,” according to Tomasevic.

Zagreb wrapped up 2019 with the loss of 1.3 billion kuna without any external reasons for that, and in 2020, the loss was only 90 million kuna, according to the relevant report on the 2020 budget execution.

However, Tomasevic added, in 2020, the covid crisis and liabilities of the ZET public transportation system, the Zagrebacki Holding multi-utility conglomerate, and the company for the waste water treatment, actually make the city’s losses higher.

The new authorities are going to revise the public procurement plan and postpone all non-essential projects in order to stabilise the finances, he explained.

“There is not yet the worst-case scenario… the situation is complex, but there are solutions and therefore we are analysing the short term money flows and which cost-cutting measures we can immediately take,” said Tomasevic who stepped into office last Friday.

One of the measures is to reduce the car fleet for the city administration, he added.

Tomasevic said that they did not plan to cut the wage budget for the time being and that they did not intend to sell city-owned land, such as the compounds of the former Gredelj factory, Paromlin or the Zagrepcanka building.

(€1 = 7.5 kuna)