The purchase of new vehicles is done, we are a law-based state and what has been signed must be respected, Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic said on Monday but admitted that the cars the government had purchased were too expensive after all.
"Everything has been done in accordance with general provisions and a decision which has been in effect for years and which says that the highest category of state officials should use luxury cars. This is how it was done during the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) rule and the former government's term," the prime minister said in the government headquarters.
He also explained that criteria had been lowered in the latest public procurement procedure, adding however that even with that, the vehicles were still too expensive.
"Now we have vehicles that cost HRK 650,000 (approx. EUR 86,000), which is the price of an average one bedroom apartment," the PM said adding that the ministers would be driven in less expensive cars in the future.
Asked about the fine tuning of the budget revision, Milanovic said that for now the state had a clear solution regarding revenues, but that measures needed to be taken to cut expenses.
The government has commissioned a total of 1,581 new vehicles -- 1,328 cars and 253 delivery vehicles and vans.
(Hina)
News
