Page 14 - EurOil Week 38 2022

EurOil POLICY EurOil

Croatia’s PM to fire INA managers if they

refuse to resign over corruption scandal

CROATIA CROATIA’S Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic question, a government statement said.
said on September 19 that he will sack the Cro- “The Hungarian side understood well the
The case relates to a atian members of oil and gas company INA if clarity of the message we sent. Not only did the
major embezlement they do not resign after a major embezzlement president of the board [Sándor] Fasimon resign,
scandal at the country’s scandal at the country’s oil refinery. the other two members of the management
oil refinery. Last month Croatia’s anti-corruption body, board did too. We expected the same from the
USKOK, arrested five people suspected of resell- Croatian members of the management board. I
ing natural gas that belonged to INA, causing believe that regardless of whether they knew or,
damages worth HRK800mn (€113mn). possibly, were bypassed in the decision-making
The Croatian government, which is one of the system, that this kind of mega affair that caused
two main shareholders in the refinery along with this kind of damage to the company, caused great
Hungary’s MOL, decided after the scandal broke damage to the government and political and rep-
that the entire management must be removed. utational damage to all of us, is a clear enough
Four days earlier, Croatia’s Economy and Sus- reason that this message coming from the level of
tainable Development Minister Davor Filipovic the prime minister and the minister of economy
gave the four Croat managers until September should and can be understood.”
21 to resign. The Croatian members of the management
After a meeting with MOL executives in board are Niko Dalic, Darko Markotic and Bar-
Zagreb earlier in September, Filipovic said all bara Doric. Ferenc Horváth and József Simola,
members of the board had lost the confidence of the Hungarian members nominated by MOL,
the Croatian government. resigned on September 16, and the Hungarian
Since then, however, there has been no move president of the management board, Fasimon, a
by the Croatian board members to step down. week earlier.
Plenkovic said on September 19 that he was The scandal has been embarrassing for the
“disgusted that not one of the [Croat] members Croatian government as one of those arrested in
of INA’s management has said anything over the August – Damir Skugor, head of INA’s natural
past four days”, and confirmed that they will be gas retail department – is a member of Plenk-
fired if they refuse to voluntarily resign. ovic’s ruling HDZ party.
“I will repeat that I immediately called the Opposition parties in parliament called for
entire board of INA to account, especially the Plenkovic’s resignation, but the prime minister
president of the board … the Hungarian and enjoys a comfortable and stable majority in par-
Croatian members. This means resignations,” liament, and it seems highly unlikely that he will
Plenkovic said in response to a journalist be forced out over the scandal. ™

P14 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 38 23•September•2022