Have HAC-ONC Collection Employees Embezzled the Company?

The management of HAC-ONC announced on Friday that internal control has identified irregularities in the Toll Collection Sector and that approximately 60 procedures are underway to determine the responsibility of employees, while the union claims that this is a classic witch hunt and pressure on workers and their representatives.

In response to today’s article in a daily newspaper claiming that 200 cashiers from toll booths are facing dismissal due to embezzlement, HAC-ONC management reports that this year the Independent Department for Internal Control and Irregularities has conducted an audit in the Toll Collection Sector, identified irregularities, and initiated procedures to determine the responsibility of certain employees. These procedures are ongoing, and there are currently about 60, the statement says. HAC-ONC management emphasizes that these are individual cases and that the majority of cashiers work honestly, and the management wants to protect them while also sending a clear message that it will not tolerate malfeasance.

Appearing on a program on HTV, HAC-ONC board member Krešimir Kvaternik stated that the number of 60 procedures varies, and that claims of 200 procedures come from union ranks. A certain number of cashiers and managers are using the system in a way that was not intended, Kvaternik said, denying the union’s claims that there is terror being exerted over the workers and emphasizing that management insists on the implementation of regulations. The president of the Independent Road Workers’ Union, Mijat Stanić, asserted that this is a “classic witch hunt and pressure on the union not to observe what management is doing.”

– This whole story came from management, and the reason is what all previous managements have done, which is to try to cover up illegal actions and somehow turn the citizens against the union. In this case as well. They conducted an illegal public procurement procedure, illegally dismissed people to appoint their friends. We opposed this and filed a criminal complaint, and they struck at the cashiers. This is a classic witch hunt that has been repeating against us since Božidar Kalmeta, Stanić said.

He adds that he has seen about 60 cases and stated that not a single disciplinary committee has proposed dismissal for any of them. None of this, Stanić says, has come to the Workers’ Council, of which he is president. He assesses that recent events are media pressure on the union to abandon what it is doing. 

– We will not give up because we did not give up on those before them, nor will we on these. We will protect the interests of Croatian Highways, and if there are cases of actual theft, as they call it, and if they prove this to us with valid documentation, the Workers’ Council will give consent for dismissal, he stated.