BUDISA HOLDS TALKS WITH 'INA' OIL COMPANY UNIONISTS

ZAGREB, Feb 3 (Hina) - A presidential candidate Drazen Budisa on Thursday held a meeting with unionists of the Croatian oil company INA. They discussed privatisation of the state-run companies and plans for the privatisation of INA. Budisa told unionists he did not address them in the capacity of the contestant of the Croatian presidential election but as the president of one of the parties in the SDP/HSLS coalition which won the recent parliamentary election. He was talking with them as the president of the HSLS party which along with another five parties in the winning block formed the Government because the issue of their talks today was not the subject matter of his presidential campaign neither was it in the jurisdiction of the future President of the Republic. "Privatisation has been carried out in a criminal manner and it will be annulled, while means raised from the annulment will be allocated to the funds for development or the pension insurance fund," Budisa said adding that the winning coalition had pledged to revise the ownership transformation and privatisation within several months. The privatisation failed to achieve its goals as the economy has been destroyed, the industrial output fallen down and the unemployment rate has increased, Budisa assessed. He held that employees should exert more influence and play a greater role during the process of the privatisation of public companies. He urged more transparent transformation of public companies which should be supervised by the national parliament. He promised to INA unionists to deliver a model for the privatisation of INA, which they gave him, to the Government to consider it. A leader of INA unionists, Bozo Mikus, advocated a greater share of workers in the ownership structure of this company. He said the firm should be first privatised and after that restructured. Unionists want more places for them in supervisory boards. (hina) ms