The head of the parliament's Constitution Committee, Drazen Bosnjakovic of the HDZ party, has said that a commission of inquiry for post-war reconstruction should be formed once concrete facts are known, but added that if corruption and irregularities occurred, they should be condemned.

“We still don’t know the exact number of houses damaged (by the 29 December earthquake in Sisak-Moslavina County), we don’t know a lot of facts and this is not the way to launch the establishment of the commission of inquiry,” Bosnjak said in an interview with Croatian Radio on Tuesday, in a comment on the opposition’s motion for a parliamentary commission that would investigate housing reconstruction in the quake-hit area after the 1991-95 war.

‘All irregularities should be condemned’

Bosnjakovic said that in principle, if there were irregularities and corruption that caused harm to others, that should be condemned.

“Still, we must be aware that this was a process that happened 20 years ago. One should go back to that time and see what was going on then. At the time, Croatia reconstructed 156,000 houses in line with rules and standards in force at the time,” Bosnjakovic said, adding that it was up to police and the Office for the Suppression of Corruption and Organised Crime (USKOK) to establish the facts.

“We don’t know how many of the rebuilt houses were damaged (in the quake) and an impression is already being created that responsibility lies with (Sisak-Moslavina County head and HDZ member) Ivo Zinic. And this is happening a couple of months before local elections. I don’t believe that someone devised a plan for the reconstruction of 160,000 houses only to profit from it. If a contractor used less construction material than necessary, I condemn it most strongly. But 20 years have passed. If such contractors are identified, if the statute of limitations has not run out, they should be penalised,” said Bosnjakovic.

The opposition has said that the commission of inquiry should question all people who were responsible for and in charge of the post-war housing reconstruction, including Zinic, who at the time was the chief engineer for post-war reconstruction.