The Minister of the Sea, Transport and Infrastructure, Oleg Butković, has decided to return the excise duties we pay in the fuel price for HŽ Infrastruktura back to HAC-ONC.
This has been confirmed to us by the Ministry, which states that these funds in HŽ Infrastruktura have not been used for their intended purpose, namely for investments. HŽ Infrastruktura has been receiving money from excise duties for the last two years after the Croatian Parliament voted on amendments to the Roads and Railways Act at the proposal of former Minister Siniša Hajdaš Dončić, repurposing the previous 60 lipa for highways into 20 lipa each for HAC-ONC, Hrvatske ceste, and HŽ Infrastruktura. This amounts to 440 million kuna per year, which HŽ Infrastruktura has been receiving. In Butković’s ministry, they believe it is better to return this money, which has not been used for its intended purpose, to the over-indebted HAC-ONC.
– Due to the reduction in budget revenues, HAC has somewhat struggled with regular operations, therefore the aim of returning these funds to the budget of the state operator of highways is to facilitate regular operations – they state.
When the proposal for amendments to the Roads and Railways Act will be sent to the Parliament is still unknown. As for what the funds were spent on, we did not receive an answer, but unofficially we were told that HŽ Infrastruktura allocated part of the excise duties for salary payments. The Ministry believes that this will not jeopardize investments in railway infrastructure as they have funds available from EU funds. This primarily concerns strategic railway routes, which means that the renewal and reconstruction of other routes will be more difficult to implement.
