ECONOMY MINISTER: CRO TELEKOM HASN'T BEEN HANDED OVER TO DT

ZAGREB, July 19 (Hina) - Croatia's Economy Minister Goranko Fizulic has refuted the media interpretations that with the signed letter of intent the government 'handed over' Croatian Telecommunications (HT) to Deutsche Telekom and that with changes to the telecommunications act it prolonged HT's monopoly on the Croatian market by 2005. "Neither the ministry nor the government handed over HT to Deutsche Telekom," Fizulic said on Thursday. After a 35-percent stock of the HT was sold to the German company in 1999, the government could not offer HT shares at a public auction owing to the situation on capital markets, in the manner stipulated by the law on the HT privatisation. The only possible solution was the sale to strategic partners and public auction when conditions are met for it, Fizulic told reporters. Asked how seven percent of HT shares will be delivered to Croatian Homeland War veterans, Fizulic said a model was being drawn up under which the shares would be collected in a fund and from which they would later be given to veterans. We have abandoned plans to directly offer them to the veterans and we have also postponed the public auction in order to avert the creation of a grey market for these shares, he said adding that such fund would probably include shares of other companies. The proposed changes do not refer to a provision of the sale of seven percent of HT shares to HT employees and its former workers under more favourable conditions. There is a possibility that the favourable sale to this category of buyers will be conducted via ESOP (employee stock ownership plan), the minister said. He added that the exclusive rights of the HT over the fixed net would expire at the end of 2002. (hina) ms