– I lobbied for you to replace the old channels on which Westgate was built with new ones and for Shopping City Zagreb to be declared a state interest, so please pay me 500,000 euros for that – this is the essence of the letter that lobbyist Mate Granić sent to the director of Shopping City Zagreb, Otto Barić, who does not want to pay the requested amount.
SCZ is the investor in Westgate, which is managed by the Zagreb Shopping Center (TCZ), the largest shopping center in Croatia valued at around 343 million euros, and which was partially built on state land, specifically on drainage channels. The investor had to build new channels and transfer them free of charge to the state, more precisely, to Hrvatske vode.
According to Večernji list, Granić states in the letter that his merit is precisely solving the problem with the channels, i.e., their replacement. As his second merit, for which he needs to be paid half a million euros, Granić mentions involvement in the second phase of obtaining the status of state interest for SCZ. Namely, SCZ has problems with part of the landowners, so the status of interest of the Republic of Croatia would enable the expropriation of that land.
Granić states in the letter that the existing lobbying-consulting team successfully completed the first phase of this lobbying, up to the level of the Zagreb County and submission to the Ministry of Justice, which was paid 400,000 euros plus VAT, and that there is still 500,000 euros left to be paid.
