"No one can force us, not even an act by this government, to do something that could
undermine the Pliva takeover by the two competitors," Samodol said.
The government gave positive assessments to reports on last year's performance by the three institutions which became HANFA earlier this year.
Prime Minister Ivo Sanader reiterated the government would sell its 18 per cent interest in Pliva to the best bidder, and said the second instalment of the debt owed to pensioners would be paid before Christmas this year.
"The one who makes a bigger offer will buy the shares. Neither the government nor the opposition can influence the two bidders' prices," he said, reiterating that HANFA was fully monitoring the process and that everything was being done transparently.
Sanader also reiterated that all the "nonsense" about a corruption scandal coming from the Social Democratic Party stemmed from either not understanding the process or were intended to deliberately unsettle pensioners.
Samodol said the rumours which appeared around the Pliva sale had nothing to do with HANFA and reiterated that the agency believed only in facts, enforcing and abiding by the law on the takeover of companies.
"In this case we are not interested in skirmishes or the political dimension. In this case there are only three sides -- Actavis, Barr and HANFA. Everything else are just attempts to obstruct the agency's work," Samodol said, adding that this was punishable under the law as no one was entitled to pressure the independent agency.
He recalled that the two bidders, Barr and Actavis, had until October 27 to compete solely with their price offers.
PM Sanader recalled that the previous SDP-led government sold seven per cent of shares in Pliva to service debts, thus losing the majority interest in the company. He said how much the government obtained for those shares was another question.
Sanader said the government would finance the second, 1.2 billion kuna instalment for the debt owed to pensioners by selling its 18 per cent interest in Pliva, and that funds for the third and fourth instalments would be secured through the third stage of the privatisation of Croatian Telecom.
(EUR1 = 7.25 kuna)