Inflation of Affairs Suits the HDZ Government

Foolish birds! Did they really have to rush into the Canadair on Monday? The public has conveniently forgotten about the delay in the delivery of that other Canadair which is in our hangar. Anger has turned towards Health Minister Vili Beroš and the team from KBC Split, following the death of that one journalist. We could all have nicely returned and finished our well-deserved annual vacations. And look at this! The bureaucrats from the Ministry of Defense are now asking for our team to go to Zadar and repair the damage caused by the birds. Life, oh prison!

This is how I imagine the beginning of a conversation in the management of the Aviation Technical Center (ZTC), a company that came into the public eye when it was revealed that the local team was delayed in completing the overhaul of one Canadair and two aerial tractors.

But if there were any fears, the director’s fear was exaggerated. ZTC is last year’s snow. The public will now spend another day or two dealing with Minister Beroš and the Split KBC. A new three-day affair will soon emerge somewhere in the state apparatus.

Poverty, Misery, and Chaos

It turns out that the HDZ government benefits from the inflation of affairs. The loyal voter base does not react negatively, and the horrors become a short-lived inconvenience. Until this year, it was normal for firefighters to always defend homes. Now, a dozen burned homes is no longer news. Nor is it news that a person perished in a fire. If around 15 daily deaths from COVID are normal, why get upset about one human life lost in a fire (which that Canadair in the Zagreb hangar might have been able to save)?

One should not fall into the trap of the inflation of affairs. At least we at Lider strive not to be drawn into the limbo. When that tragicomic press conference was held where Defense Minister Mario Banožić, ZTC Director Zdravko Klanac, and a lady from CERP answered journalists’ questions, it was announced that a meeting of the ZTC Supervisory Board would be held at the beginning of this week. So we sent questions to CERP and ZTC asking whether the meeting of the representatives of the owners took place. No response from ZTC, and the inquiry from CERP was returned because the spokesperson, of course, is on vacation, and no one from the management answered.

We will ask again and again. Because it is not just about the Canadair that sits idle in the hangar of the Aviation Technical Center. The matter is much broader. This is an example that reflects all the misery, chaos, and the government’s disinterest in introducing a quality corporate governance system for companies in full or majority state ownership.

First, some time ago, ZTC was removed from the list of strategically important state companies. Why was this done? One of the conditions from the EU at some point was to reduce the number of state companies. So some had to be handed over to the Company Restructuring Center, an institution that resembles a bizarre platypus. Namely, it is neither an agency for selling state companies nor a holding that has a serious system for managing companies.

And so great joy was born. The formal owner is CERP, which is under the Ministry of Economy. The main client is another ministry – the Ministry of Defense. And to make the chaos complete, the chairwoman of the Supervisory Board is Vildana Megla, a chief in the third ministry, that of maritime affairs, transport, and connections. And there you have the Bermuda Triangle in which it is possible for technicians to go on vacation in the middle of the season, for some to work abroad, and for others to repair private cars using the basic resources of the said Aviation Technical Center. Meanwhile, Director Klanac sees no problem with the guys servicing private vehicles within the Center when they have time.

Boring OECD

If there were will and desire in Plenković’s Banski dvori, state companies would be managed from a state holding, such as those that exist in a number of more developed countries. And in which the oversight and management work is led by independent professionals. Of course, here that is a utopia, because what would the interested party cadres say? And ministers would lose a significant part of their intra-party power. About 15 years ago, such a holding was established. It was headed by the serious Dunja Vidošević, but her power was taken away after just a few months.

There still exists a faint hope that the state could at least formally manage state companies more seriously. Boring Brussels constantly demands that something be done about it. And the OECD is also in play. Prime Minister Plenković intends to introduce Croatia into that club to obtain another membership card. But for that, among other things, corporate governance in state companies is required. Thus, the hope that a disgrace like the one revealed in ZTC will not be repeated dies last.