Deputies of the Party of Rights (HSP), the Peasant Party (HSS) and the People's Party (HNS) objected that during a vote on declassifying audit findings for the ministries of defence, foreign affairs and the interior this morning, Speaker Seks failed to check if there was a quorum necessary for the vote.
Seks was also criticised for having made an autonomous decision to put the matter to the vote by a show of hands although such a decision could have been made only if so requested by a club of deputies, for failing to state clearly what was being put to the vote, and for failing to state the result of the vote, concluding that the proposal was accepted.
Zeljko Pecek of the HSS said that he would request the Committee on the Constitution, Rules of Procedure and Political System to discuss Seks's conduct.
Pecek said that he wanted to point in the debate to the 159 million kuna that ended up in secret bank accounts under the entry "ministry's own revenues" instead of in the state budget. State auditors should investigate secret accounts in foreign banks into which money intended for the country's defence ended up during the war in Croatia, he said.
Pero Kovacevic of the HSP, too, believes that audit findings remain a dead letter since nobody has answered for the irregularities that were found.
Kovacevic warned that the audited entities last year carried out only 23.7 percent of instructions given by the Office of the Chief Auditor.
He advocated changes to the Law on Public Procurement to prevent attempts to bypass it, and criticised the government for rendering the law less effective by failing to adopt necessary implementation regulations.
Explaining why Opposition deputies were not in the hall during this morning's debate, Sime Prtenjaca of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) said that "there was obviously not enough reason for debate and argument". He said that audit findings showed improvements in the spending of public money, that the Office of the Chief Auditor was organised in line with international standards, that audits were efficient and that internal audits were being gradually introduced.
Prtenjaca believes that mild departures in the financial planning of some entities are the result of the fact that "some have already specialised in complaints".