UNIONS' ASSOCIATION SEEKS PASSING PRIVATISATION AUDITING LAW

ZAGREB, Nov 10 (Hina) - The Croatian Association of Trade Unions (HUS) on Friday urged passing a privatisation and ownership transformation auditing law before public companies were privatised, in order to avoid the repetition of past mistakes. Preparations for the privatisation of the most valuable companies, like INA, HEP, or JANAF, are underway, although mistakes from the previous privatisation, when many companies were pillaged and destroyed, have not been corrected, HUS president Zdenko Mucnjak told a news conference. He said it was imperative to pass a law on the auditing on ownership transformation and privatisation. He reminded the incumbent authorities had promised to do so as one of their principal goals ahead of January's elections, but that nine months later, a final bill had still not been formulated. HUS supports a bill drafted by Darko Petricic, author of "Crime in Croatian Ownership Transformation", and urges the government to forward it into urgent parliamentary procedure, before private companies are privatised. Petricic said he expected major resistance to his bill, especially from tycoons and banks. He suggested temporarily transferring all stocks into the Croatian Privatisation Fund and state funds, until owners proved the stocks had been purchased legally. Petricic also suggested a moratorium on all managerial loans which banks granted during ownership transformation and privatisation, as well as freezing property bought with money drained from privatised companies. (hina) ha jn