Chief State Inspector to the Parliament: Inspectors identified 2,000 price irregularities during euro changeover

Zagreb - Chief State Inspector Andrija Mikulić said in the parliament on Wednesday that the State Inspectorate received two first-instance court rulings that state inspectors had accurately identified an unjustified increase in prices upon the euro adoption on 1 January.

Referring to the introduction of the euro, Mikulić said that in about 10,000 inspections conducted,  about 2,000 cases of violations due to incorrect conversion of prices were identified. But, he said, penalties were issued for only five cases. Mikulić also underscored that the inspectorate had received a court verdict regarding state inspectors in which the economic operators were found guilty of undue price increases.

"The State Inspectorate is not an institution that punishes only the small, but not the big ones. Its actions are uniform. The law is defined equally for everyone," Mikulić said during a parliamentary debate on amendments to the Law on the State Inspectorate.

Mikulić was responding to accusations by Bridge MP Marin Miletić, who believes that the State Inspectorate is penalising only the "small", but not the big, strong and powerful.

In response to Miletić's warning that there are not enough building inspectors on the ground to control unlawful construction along the Adriatic coast, and illegal buildings were sprouting like "mushrooms after the rain," Mikulić said that rezoning is a "cancerous wound."

Mikulić stated that in an operation in Istria, inspectors recorded 130 (illegal construction) plots with a drone, some of which were divided into 400 square meters, even though they were zoned as forest or agricultural land. Mikulić also said that, according to the law, municipal wardens have great powers, who only need to apply them.

Author: Hina