Apart from offering the highest possible price, another condition for the buyer is to keep Pliva's workers and brand and invest in the company's development, Jarnjak said, adding that Pliva's management board played no role whatsoever in the process of sale.
The government intends to use the money from the sale of its shares for the payment of its debt to pensioners, Jarnjak said, dismissing speculations by the Social Democratic Party (SDP) about Miomir Zuzul's lobbying for the US company Barr in the process of sale of Pliva.
The SDP is facing a crisis and such moves are not surprising, but what surprises are the party's attempts to downplay the importance of statistics proving the government's success, Jarnjak said.
The HDZ official dismissed claims about PM Ivo Sanader's reported involvement in secret negotiations on the sale of Pliva in Verona in June this year, stating that Sanader was accompanied the whole time of his visit by Ambassador to Italy Tomislav Vidosevic.
The Prime Minister visited Verona on 24 and 25 June with his wife and he paid for his accommodation and travelled on the government plane with his wife and members of his security team, Jarnjak said.
Speaking about the transparency of the sale of Pliva, HDZ spokesman Ratko Macek said it was intolerable for one and the same agency to work for the SDP and one of the bidders (Actavis).
Commenting on claims by SDP vice-president Zeljka Antunovic about corruption in the HDZ, Virovitica mayor Zvonko Koznjak said that documents which he had recently obtained showed that Antunovic, at the time when she was deputy prime minister, had sold her parents' house in Virovitica to the Lidl company for 270,000 euros.
The transaction is suspicious because similar houses in Virovitica are three times cheaper, Koznjak said, adding that the SDP was in power in Virovitica at the time and that it had lost the elections due to corruption.
The HDZ leaders announced a meeting of all senior party members to take place in Karlovac on September 16.
Speaking to reporters after a session of a government commission today, PM Sanader said that "the nonsense coming from the SDP" regarding the sale of the government's 18-percent share in Pliva was aimed at thwarting the payment of the state's debt to pensioners, but that the government would pay the second instalment to pensioners by the end of the year.
"The SDP is trying to stir unrest among pensioners, but after it sells its 18-percent share, the government will pay the debt, which neither Racan's nor other governments had recognised," Sanader said.
"The process of (sale of Pliva) is being conducted by the Croatian agency for the supervision of financial transactions HANFA and the government, as one of the shareholders, will sell its shares to the best bidder," Sanader said.