POSITIVE STEPS MADE IN EMPLOYING VETERANS - GOVT SESSION

ZAGREB, June 17 (Hina) - The Croatian government on Thursday assessed positive steps had been made in employing demobilised veterans, despite problems in economy. A total of 42,890 demobilised veterans have found employment between the beginning of the year and April. The situation however remains difficult because some 12,000 veterans were employed annually in recent years, but only about 10,000 would report to the Employment Bureau. These are veterans who were demobilised from the army or the interior ministry, or who worked in companies which went bankrupt, assistant veterans minister Pero Kovacevic said presenting a report on the employment of unemployed demobilised veterans. Kovacevic pointed out that provisions stating that veterans should have priority for employment in state administration bodies, local self-government, and public companies were not complied with. Another way to employ veterans is by allocating arable land, but Kovacevic pointed to the lack of loans for the purchase of equipment and machinery. Local authorities often put up bureaucratic barriers to the use of state-allocated arable land, the assistant minister said. Today, the government adopted the results of an inspection of the use of state-allocated arable land which, said Premier Zlatko Matesa, showed there were almost no instances of it being used contrary to earmarking. Only three percent of land is not used as earmarked, he said, but for objective reasons, such as unsolved property relations, or mine- infested areas. (hina) ha jn