Zagreb Mayor Tomislav Tomasevic said on Tuesday that a 20% rise in water price in the capital city was inevitable, and that the increase was proposed after all possible internal savings had been made.

“Nobody came and saw that the Holding (city utility company) was on the verge of bankruptcy and immediately increased prices. We did not do that but rather underwent the painful process of dismissing surplus workers in the administration and only now are we increasing prices,” Tomasevic said during a press conference.

He underlined that for more than a year, prices of not any utility service in Zagreb went up, despite the effects of inflation, which will cause a loss of about HRK 1 billion in the city budget.

The mayor said that utility companies cannot solve the pressure of inflation through savings.

“We have operating losses in business, and almost three-quarters of the 20% price increase for water will go to investments,” said Tomasevic, noting that there are 3,500 kilometres of water pipes in the network and that about 50% of the water supplies is leaking in the existing network.

An additional reason for the price increase is the fact that with the new law from 1 January, the cost of lost water in the pipes falls on the Water and Sewer Company (ViO), because water is charged according to the water taken, not delivered. This is an additional cost for that company of around HRK 50 million per year.

In the next five years, ViO will invest HRK 2 billion in water infrastructure and pipelines to prevent further bursts and to reduce losses as much as possible in the network, said Tomasevic.

When asked whether the people of Zagreb are in fact paying from their own pockets for his campaign promises, Tomasevic said that no one can say that everything possible was not done before the price increase.