ZAGREB, May 5 (Hina) - The leader of Libra party, Jozo Rados, has said that declarations of assets of Croatian parliamentary members were made public yesterday "in an extremely primitive way" and added that publishing declarations of
assets rather than tax records favours an anti-entrepreneurial climate and a negative attitude towards MPs.
ZAGREB, May 5 (Hina) - The leader of Libra party, Jozo Rados, has said
that declarations of assets of Croatian parliamentary members were
made public yesterday "in an extremely primitive way" and added that
publishing declarations of assets rather than tax records favours an
anti-entrepreneurial climate and a negative attitude towards MPs.#L#
Speaking at a news conference on Wednesday, Rados said yesterday's
publishing of declarations of assets of all MPs by the parliamentary
commission on conflict of interest, with the media giving extensive
coverage of the event, was an act of "throwing dust in the eyes of the
public".
He explained that under the Law on the Prevention of Conflict of
Interest tax records were public documents. He added that he had
requested the finance minister to grant him access to the tax records
of all government members and the parliamentary leadership but was
told that under the general tax law tax records were confidential.
Rados recalled that the right of access to declarations of assets was
granted by both the Law on the Prevention of Conflict of Interest and
the Law on the Right of Access to Information.
He concluded that in this case the Law on the Prevention of Conflict
of Interest had precedence over the general tax law.
"The purpose of the Law on the Prevention of Conflict of Interest is
to establish if an official acquired his property lawfully and not to
establish what he possesses," Rados said.
(Hina) rml