President Stjepan Mesic, Prime Minister Ivo Sanader and Parliament Speaker Vladimir Seks met at government headquarters to discuss the process of ownership transformation and privatisation.
Also attending were representatives of the Office of the Chief Public Prosecutor, the State Audit Office, the Privatisation Fund, the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Justice.
Croatia has given absolute priority to intensifying work on all cases where the need has arisen for the review of ownership transformation and privatisation, Prime Minister Sanader said.
President Mesic said that it was now up to state authorities to take all the necessary steps to ensure that the statute of limitations did not expire and that offenders were punished.
The Speaker of the Sabor said that not a single application had been filed in the past year to audit a firm's financial records. "That is one of the key arguments why there is no need to extend the law's life," Seks said.
The State Audit Service has examined more than 85 per cent of the state property portfolio in companies. Over 1,600 firms have been audited, as a result of which over 800 persons have been brought to justice or are awaiting trial; 74 guilty verdicts have been handed down, including nine unconditional prison sentences, while the remaining cases are still under consideration, Chief Public Prosecutor Mladen Bajic said.