ZAGREB, May 31 (Hina) - The Croatian parliament's House of Representatives on Wednesday endorsed by a majority of vote a bill of amendments to the privatisation law in first reading. Addressing the Lower House, Economy Minister
Goranko Fizulic said there were only three possible objectives in privatisation, to equally distribute the encountered national wealth, fill up the state budget, or create a productive economy. Nothing has been done to that effect in the past decade, which has made privatisation in Croatia unsuccessful, he said. MPs of the ruling six-party coalition pointed out during debate privatisation in Croatia represented the pillage of the century, and that it had not realised even one objective. Neither economic productivity, nor employment, nor the residents' standard have been increased, and the technological modernisation of the economy has not occurred either, they
ZAGREB, May 31 (Hina) - The Croatian parliament's House of
Representatives on Wednesday endorsed by a majority of vote a bill
of amendments to the privatisation law in first reading.
Addressing the Lower House, Economy Minister Goranko Fizulic said
there were only three possible objectives in privatisation, to
equally distribute the encountered national wealth, fill up the
state budget, or create a productive economy. Nothing has been done
to that effect in the past decade, which has made privatisation in
Croatia unsuccessful, he said.
MPs of the ruling six-party coalition pointed out during debate
privatisation in Croatia represented the pillage of the century,
and that it had not realised even one objective. Neither economic
productivity, nor employment, nor the residents' standard have
been increased, and the technological modernisation of the economy
has not occurred either, they said, adding this was the result of
"the sin of the structures."
Hrvoje Zoric said on behalf of the Croatian Social Liberal Party
bench that Croatia's privatisation model had proven not only
ineffective, but immoral as well, because former authorities
nurtured the idea of creating a community of a selected 200 wealthy
Croatian families.
Zoric agreed it was necessary to audit privatisation, as well as to
specify more clearly who may submit requests for repeating
privatisation proceedings. He said the current bill gave any
shareholder in any company dissatisfied with the privatisation the
right to restart the proceedings.
Mato Arlovic of the Social Democratic Party bench said the aim of
the bill of amendments was to right the wrongs and abuses in
privatisation. He endorsed the bill, but said the deadline for
submitting requests for repeating privatisation proceedings
should be extended from one month to a year upon receiving the State
Audit Bureau's report.
Former Privatisation Minister Milan Kovac, of the Croatian
Democratic Union (HDZ), objected to attempts of blaming the
formerly ruling party for the "sin of the structures". Elaborating
on the conditions in which privatisation had been done over the past
decade, he concluded it was indeed in HDZ's interest to have
everything subjected to a quality audit.
HDZ's Vladimir Seks also advocated a privatisation audit, but said
the bill of amendments was unconstitutional.
According to the bill, if the State Audit Bureau establishes that
the decision on privatisation or the company evaluation study was
based on a false document, false witness statement, or forged
documents, privatisation proceedings are repeated by the Croatian
Privatisation Fund (HFP). This, Seks said, is unconstitutional as
it falls under the jurisdiction of courts and not the HFP or the
State Audit Bureau.
Seks said the bill should specify the deadline within which the
State Audit Bureau was to establish whether there had been illegal
activities in privatisation proceedings, since lack of this would
result in utter legal and economic uncertainty.
SDP's Zorko Vidicek said this was incorrect, and that those who
legally privatised companies had nothing to fear.
(hina) ha