Governments are accountable for providing quality public services to their citizens
at the most favourable terms. They are, among other issues, responsible for managing a
diversified public asset portfolio.
This paper examines one of the critical financial challenges in Croatia: managing
public sector assets efficiently. It attempts to facilitate better understanding of public asset
management as an integral part of public sector reforms. The lack of reliable information
on public assets in place hinders determination of the assets’ value, budgeting for asset
management activities and evaluating public asset portfolio performance. As a result, assets
are managed on an ad-hoc, often reactive basis. Starting from the concept that public
authorities have to be fully accountable to the public, we propose the preconditions
necessary for commencing proper public asset management practice in Croatia. Our
model might help other countries that are also faced with public asset management inefficiency.