"There is no lack of cash flow in Croatia. Tax discipline is in place. One cannot say that it is insolvency if the state blocks an account of those who have failed to pay taxes. If we do not do so, we can be perceived to be encouraging corruption by paving the way for deals," Suker said at the government's session in the northeastern town of Virovitica on Friday.
During the session in Virovitica, the Croatian government adopted a draft yearly settlement of the state budget in 2006.
Suker said that the central government deficit in 2006 was 4.1 billion kuna. However, if the sum of 4.7 billion kuna, used last year to pay interest rates on debts that had been taken to finance the budgetary deficit in previous years, is subtracted from the budgetary revenues in 2006, the government was actually in the black.
In this context, Suker highlighted the Ivo Sanader cabinet's success in cutting the general government deficit from 6.3 percent of the Gross Domestic Product to three percent of GDP, that is from 15 billion to 7 billion kuna.
During the discussion about the yearly settlement of the state budget, Prime Minister Ivo Sanader pointed out several macroeconomic indicators.
The economic growth rate was 4.8 percent in 2006, with the survey unemployment reaching 11.2 percent.
PM Sanader said that the number of employed Croatians had risen by 90,000 over the last three years.
The government also sent to parliament a new draft act on public procurement.
The government said that the new draft act would enable greater transparency and speedier procedure in the legal protection in public procurement processes.
The government postponed a debate on a new draft act on aliens, as it had only recently received recommendations of the European Union regarding that legislation.
With its session in Virovitica, the Sanader cabinet completed a plan to hold sessions not only in Zagreb but also in each of Croatia's 21 counties.
On this occasion, Sanader said that his cabinet had allocated a total of 303 million kuna for local projects.
The sum does not include projects that have been co-financed by international financial institutions or transfer of ownership of real estate.