Andrija Hebrang of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) accused the national broadcasting corporation of having evaded paying 24.6 million kuna, which he said the HRT should have paid into the Fund for Encouragement of Pluralism, and 6.3 million kuna which it should have paid to the Electronic Media Council.
He went on to say that the HRT also evaded paying 171 million kuna of taxes and that it suffered losses of 40 million kuna. The HDZ official accused the HRT leadership of other financial wrongdoing in 2004 too.
Antun Vujic of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) said he had no such information, that he trusted the report submitted by the HRT earlier in the day, and proposed that the parliament endorse the document.
As regards criticism levelled against programmes, this should be dealt with by the Programmes Council, he added.
Vujic also believes that some HRT broadcasts disseminate information from the intelligence underworld which then serves as a basis for reports on individuals and events and leads to what he calls pseudo-truths about Croatian history.
Other MPs criticised Croatian Television of painting a distorted picture of parliamentary deputies.
They agreed that MPs were not sacred cows, but accused the HRT managers of having higher salaries, while pointing out that MPs easily earned high wages.
HRT Director Mirko Galic responded that criticism levelled by the HDZ official about a poor financial performance was not fair.
He ascribed the not so good financial results to the abolishment of the third channel which he said led to fewer time for commercials.
He also refuted allegations that the HRT failed to pay certain amounts of money to the Fund for Encouragement of Pluralism and the above-mentioned Council.
According to Galic, the national broadcasting corporation did it when the said bodies were established.