- Published: 09.10.2015.
Deputy PM Opacic: HRK 107 mn in debts written off
Social Policy and Youth Minister Milanka Opacic said on Friday that 107 million kuna in debts owed by socially vulnerable people had been written off under agreements between the government and creditors and claims for a further 15 million kuna had been delayed.
Opacic held a press conference to present the results of the government measure to alleviate the financial status of destitute citizens with frozen accounts or foreclosed homes by writing off their debts of up to 35,000 kuna.
"This made the life of the most vulnerable families easier and gave them a fresh start free of debt, while at the same time the business of the 294 creditors which signed an agreement with the government on debt write-off was not jeopardised," she said.
A total of 37,000 applications for debt write-off were submitted, of which 30,202 have been approved, 194 are still being processed and 4,662 have been refused for failure to meet the criteria. The government initially estimated that the measure could cover about 60,000 citizens.
When asked why she thought the measure was successful if only half of the estimated number of people used it, Opacic said that the figure of 60,000 had been given as the number of people registered as recipients of social benefits rather than as an estimate of the number of people who might use this measure.
The deadline for the submission of applications for debt write-off expired on July 31.
Most of the debts have been written off by public broadcaster HRT, Croatian Telecom, mobile phone operator Vipnet, Croatian Postal Bank, Zagrebacka Banka, the Ministry of Finance, the Croatian Health Insurance Fund and Zagreb Holding.
(EUR 1 = HRK 7.624872)
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