.png)
Zagreb - Seget municipality holds the 2022 record for rejecting requests for access to information from citizens and councillors, opposition MPs said on Thursday.
Municipal head Vinko Zulim, an HDZ MP until recently, spent €66,400 on food and drinks that year, Mirela Ahmetović of the Social Democratic Party said during a debate on the 2022 report on the implementation of the law on the right to access information.
Seget and its tourist board hold the record in terms of complains and hiding information, she added.
Information Commissioner Anita Markić confirmed that Seget ranked first in the 2022 report, when the municipality received 1,527 requests for accessing information.
Vesna Nađ of the Social Democrats said 61% of the information commissioner's orders for dealing with requests for access to information pertained to Seget and its tourist board.
Dražen Bošnjaković of the ruling HDZ said 37% of the bodies received no such requests in 2022 and that the administration must not keep silent about those requests.
Nikola Grmoja of Bridge said it was impossible to access certain information from historical archives, and called out the HDZ for "closing the communist archives".
Davor Dretar of the Homeland Movement criticised the financial transparency of state-owned companies and said 10% of public bodies did not have a website.
Dalija Orešković of the SIP said anti-corruption bodies and offices should be headed by people ready to put up resistance.
All state bodies, state administration bodies, courts and judicial bodies, legal entities with public competence and nearly all local government units are obliged to submit annual data on the implementation of the law on the right to access information.
In 2022, 91% of the 5,874 public authority bodies received a total of 23,610 requests to access information.