This is How Hundreds of Thousands of Euros 'Go to Waste' in Zagreb Every Year: Asphalt Plan Made, Little Realized, Only 7% of Plans Completed in One District

Zagreb's municipal administration is facing criticism over the abysmal execution of its plan for small communal asphalt projects. In 2025, several local districts, particularly Novi Zagreb-zapad, reported near-zero completion rates for essential road maintenance and asphalting works, despite allocated budgets.

Data reveals that in the Novi Zagreb-zapad district, out of €774,000 earmarked for small communal actions, only €232,827.20, or 30.08%, was actually spent. This stark underperformance has led to frustration among local council members and residents who feel their neighborhoods are being neglected. The situation is particularly dire in 13 out of 16 local committees within Novi Zagreb-zapad, where no projects from this specific plan were realized.

While opposition parties, like the local HDZ branch, have decried the situation as a failure of governance, city officials offer a different perspective. Nebojša Aleksić, president of the Novi Zagreb-zapad district council, argues that the figures are being misrepresented. He clarified that the 'plan of small communal actions' only covers minor asphalting tasks, distinct from larger road infrastructure projects funded by the main district budget. Aleksić asserted that overall municipal activities in the district utilized 85% of the available funds, suggesting that the low figure for the 'small actions' plan doesn't reflect the entirety of the district's development efforts.

However, the core issue remains: residents in many parts of Zagreb are experiencing a significant gap between planned and executed local infrastructure improvements. The allocated budgets for these small projects, often only tens of thousands of euros per local committee, are frequently insufficient even for a single street's asphalting, leading to a sense of abandonment and raising questions about the efficiency and effectiveness of municipal planning and spending in the Croatian capital.

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Ekipa iz HDZ-a izvrće informacije i predstavlja ih onako kako njima odgovara. Asfaltiranje se provodi i iz glavnog proračuna četvrti, a u plan malih komunalnih akcija ulaze samo manji asfalterski zahvati. Nije istina da se ništa ne radi u tim mjesnim odborima. Štoviše, potrošili smo čak 85 posto sredstava na razne komunalne aktivnosti u četvrti–