VETERANS IN MAKARSKA GIVEN 20 NEW FLATS

MAKARSKA, Sept 4 (Hina) - Twenty newly-built flats in the southern Croatian port of Makarska were presented for use to Croatian Homeland War veterans on Saturday. Present at the event was Development, Immigration, and Reconstruction Minister Jure Radic. According to the minister, to date 54 flats worth US$2.8 million, earmarked from the state budget, have been built in Makarska for families of Croatian soldiers and veterans. The flats presented today marked the completion three months before the deadline of a programme aimed at providing care for veterans' families. The construction of another building with 20 flats will begin soon, Radic said, adding the programme will be completed in full in 18 months, by which time all veterans in Makarska will have been taken care of. "Seventy-hundred-and-eighty flats are currently being built in Split-Dalmatia County, while 1,000 flats for Homeland War veterans will be completed all over Croatia by year's end," the minister said. He reminded that the programme providing housing to veterans' families envisages the settlement of the housing issue for some 15,000 families. Half will be given flats, the other half housing loans. "The Croatian state will never forget its soldiers, who for Croatia's freedom gave the most valuable thing they had, and will do everything to make them have an existence worthy of man," minister Radic said. (hina) ha