Eleven of 27 heads of city departments in Zagreb are no longer in their positions and acting heads will be appointed in their stead from among administration staff, Mayor Tomislav Tomasevic announced on Tuesday, saying that this transition will last until the reorganization of the city administration. 

“It was important to us that some of them no longer hold those positions and that they do not have the authority to sign (contracts),” Tomasevic told a press conference while speaking about moves by the new city administration in the last two months.

The mayor said that some of the department heads were leaving while the majority had been reassigned to other jobs. Noting that the transition period would be temporary, he said that a call for new department heads would be issued as part of the reorganization of the city administration, which takes effect on 31 October, and there would be a revision of job classification for each department.

Speaking of the pace of post-earthquake reconstruction, Tomasevic said that no one could be satisfied with it and that no progress would be possible without a systematic solution at state level.

“We can say what we have done each week for the last two months to speed up the reconstruction process. Since the City of Zagreb is not fully responsible for reconstruction, good cooperation (with the central government) is imperative,” he stressed, adding that this would most likely require amending the Reconstruction Act.

Tomasevic said that calls for one-off grants to non-governmental organizations would be suspended as of 31 July as part of budget cuts.