Croatian Health Minister Fired Over Real Estate Scandal

Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic, who is also a leader of the ruling Croatian Democratic Union, HDZ, sacked Health Minister Milan Kujundzic on Tuesday after a series of media reports that he did not admit the true value of his real estate holdings.

"The minister was focused on topics that had nothing to do with what he was doing," Plenkovic told reporters.

Plenkovic also said that Kujundzic will return to parliament and have the opportunity to explain everything. The prime minister will propose a new minister on Wednesday.

For several days, Kujundzic has been the subject of reports that claimed he misrepresented the real value of his properties in his declaration of assets.

The latest report, published on Saturday on the Telegram website, covered the payment of 4.7 million kunas (635,000 euros) from the health ministry's budget in 2018 and 2019 to a firm owned by a former business partner of the Kujundzic family and their next-door neighbour.

At a press conference on Monday, Kujundzic admitted that he had mistakenly misrepresented the value of his property, but insisted that it had been obtained in a fair and transparent manner. He refused to resign.

"Resigning would be the easy thing to do, however, my sense of morality and my life credo do not allow me to that… Therefore, I have agreed with the prime minister… to allow him to decide what to do with my mandate," Kujundzic told reporters.

This is not the first time that ministers in Plenkovic's cabinet have been ousted by real estate scandals.

In July last year, Administration Minister Lovro Kuscevic and State Property Minister Goran Maric resigned after media revealed irregularities related to the registration of property assets.

Shortly afterwards,...

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