According to Justice Minister Vesna Skare Ozbolt, the national programme on preventing corruption between 2006 and 2008 will attach special attention on the judiciary, legislation, local self-government units and political parties, namely the areas of social life which the citizens believe are the most corrupted.
The minister said the draft programme with concrete anti-corruption measures, goals and deadlines would soon be sent to the government and added she expected the parliament to adopt it by consensus by the end of this year.
The fundamental objective of the programme is to prevent and efficiently and timely discover corruption, Skare Ozbolt. She said that by adopting the programme the government wanted to show that by the end of its mandate it wanted to reduce corruption to the level which would not be an obstacle to the social, economic and political development.
A national council for the monitoring of the implementation of the anti-corruption programme is to be set up, the minister noted adding that the council would include parliamentary deputies, representatives of employers, trade unions, nongovernmental associations, independent experts and the media.
The head of a task force which drafted the programme, Josip Kregar, said the draft document included 82 concrete measures for corruption prevention and added that he expected all political forces to back the document.
Zorislav Antun Petrovic, the president of Transparency International Croatia, which has recently issued a report saying that the corruption perception index in Croatia was the worst in the last five years, expressed hope there would be enough political will for the adoption of the new draft programme.
The CPI for Croatia is the worst in the last five years. The country is ranked 70th among 159 nations with the CPI score 3.4. Last year Croatia was placed 67th among 146 countries with the CPI score 3.5.