REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, ZAGREB -- Croatia's Culture Minister Andrea Zlatar Violic resigned on Wednesday over financial irregularities in her department, the ninth minister to leave since the coalition came to power in December 2011.
The Balkan country has seen a string of high-level resignations, and prosecutions, since it launched drives to fight graft and tighten regulations that helped pave the way to it joining the European Union in 2013.
"I accept responsibility for irregularities in our finances and apologise for insufficient control and not respecting the regulations," Zlatar Violic said in her resignation letter carried by state news agency Hina.
Local media reported an internal audit had shown that Zlatar Violic and several other ministry officials had not been prompt enough in returning cash taken out on official credit cards to cover travel expenses.
Zlatar Violic did not refer directly to those allegations. But she wrote: "Although all the debt has been paid back, I think that my resignation is a logical consequence of my responsibility for financial irregularities."
She added that all travel expenses were related to completed business trips.
Zlatar Violic comes from the junior partner in the ruling centre-left coalition, the liberal HNS party.
Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic's government is trailing the conservative opposition in polls ahead of a national election due in late 2015, mostly because of its failure to revive the economy, which has been in recession since 2009.
The other eight ministers have resigned for a variety of reasons, from health issues to avoiding conflicts of interest.
Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic sacked then finance minister Slavko Linic last May over a property deal he said had hurt the state budget.
Former prime minister Ivo Sanader was sentenced to eight-and-a-half years in jail last year in a case that involved the payment of bribes to Austria's Hypo Bank and the Hungarian oil and gas group MOL. He has appealed and has denied any wrongdoing.
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