The harshest criticism came from Ingrid Anticevic-Marinovic of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) who requested the government to withdraw the draft.
A State Secretary at the Finance Ministry, Martina Dalic, dismissed the Opposition's accusations, saying that she was shocked that such assessments were reiterated during the debate.
The Opposition, however, insisted that the annual financial statement of the 2004 budget was significantly different than the budget adopted by parliament and criticised the government for conducting a technical revision in December 2004 to increase the budget without the approval of parliament.
Five billion kuna of unpaid obligations have been hidden, as well as one billion kuna of unpaid bills to Croatian Railways and almost 3.5 billion kuna of debt in the health sector, bills in road construction, etc., said Slavko Linic of the SDP.
This budget is falsified, this is not the budget adopted by parliament, but only a technical revision which the government adopted in December, said Jozo Rados of the HNS/PGS club of deputies.
The ruling Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) said the government last year conducted a successful fiscal policy and achieved its objectives. The HDZ deputies said the economic activities and state solvency went up, the primary deficit was reduced and state savings increased.