The demand was signed by 31 SDP deputies who hold Vukelic politically responsible for concluding harmful contracts in his capacity as chairman of the supervisory board of the Brodosplit shipyard, which resulted in six million US dollars of damage to the Split-based company.
SDP deputy Marin Jurjevic said that Vukelic had authorised the disputed contracts with the Vessels company for four tankers although he had been warned at a supervisory board meeting that the contracts were damaging and despite the ongoing money laundering investigation launched by the FBI and Interpol.
Vukelic rejected the accusations, saying that the supervisory board had not done anything illegal or harmful to the shipyard. He shifted the responsibility onto the managing board.
"The chairman of the supervisory board cannot negotiate business deals, that is the management's job," Vukelic said, adding that the disputed contracts were much more favourable than those signed by the previous management who ran the shipyard during the term of the previous, SDP-led government.
Deputy Prime Minister Damir Polancec also rejected the accusations against Vukelic, saying that as soon as suspicions had been raised about possible financial wrongdoing in Brodosplit the government had urged the police and the public prosecutor to investigate.
On Wednesday, the county and municipal prosecutors in Split filed separate requests for investigations into several members of the current and former management board of the Brodosplit shipyard on suspicion that they had abused their office by signing harmful contracts.
The county prosecutor's office charged stock broker Drago Macek, Brodosplit CEO Goran Vukasovic and the manager of the Brodogradiliste sector, Ante Luetic, with causing 4.7 million US dollars worth of damage to Brodosplit in order to obtain material gain. The prosecutor demanded that they be taken into custody.
The municipal prosecutor's office filed a request for a probe into former CEO Petar Cudina and management board members and sector heads Goran Cvitanic, Milan Senjanovic, and Frane Donadini.
They are charged with signing harmful contracts that were below market prices, thus causing damage to the company amounting to at least 36 million dollars. The prosecutor did not request that they be taken into custody.