Addressing a round table discussion on financing election campaigns and on conflict of interest, which was organised in Zagreb on Tuesday by GONG, a nongovernmental organisation for monitoring elections, Krasic said she could not make the findings available to public before the parliament discussed it.
GONG held a round table in Croatian Parliament under the auspicies of the president of Croatian Parliament Mr Luka Bebic:
FINANCING ELECTION CAMPAIGNS AND CONFLICT OF INTEREST: Lessons and challenges
Round table was organized within the international project „Election Laws and Conflict of Interest – Experience and Practice from the region“ which is being conducted by GONG, CeSID and AEOBIH.
Round table was held on Tuesday, July 1 2008, from 10 till 14 hours, in Croatian Parliament, Ivana Mažuranića room, Trg Sv. Marka 6,
Zagreb. President of Croatian Parliament Mr Luka Bebic addressed the guests at the opening and key note speakers included Phd Josip Kregar (Faculty of Law), Šima Krasić (State Audit Office) and Zorislav Antun Petrović (Transparency International Croatia).
The aim of the round table was to analyse financial reporting of political parties and discuss potential amendments of conflict of interest rules, as the key component in fighting political corruption.
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Chief auditor relatively satisfied with findings of financial audits of political parties
ZAGREB, July 1 (Hina) – Croatian Chief State Auditor Sima Krasic has said that she is relatively satisfied with findings of audits of financial data of 15 parliamentary parties and nine independent members of the parliament in 2007.
Addressing a round table discussion on financing election campaigns and on conflict of interest, which was organised in Zagreb on Tuesday by GONG, a nongovernmental organisation for monitoring elections, Krasic said she could not make the findings available to public before the parliament discussed it. She said that a majority of objections had referred to consolidated financial statements, data on donations, membership fees etc. Krasic declined to say whether any of those 15 political parties or independent MPs were negatively assessed, and she only said that a majority of them were given conditional grades.
Zagreb Law School professor Josip Kregar said that Croatia was among eight percent of countries in the world in which the Office of Chief State Auditor and the Finance Ministry controlled the financing of political parties, and this is not good, in his opinion.
For him, the limits of donations to political parties are too high given that individuals can donate up to HRK 90,000 and legal entities up to HRK 1,000,000.
(Hina) ms