Social Democratic Party (SDP) member of Parliament Ingrid Anticevic-Marinovic said on Wednesday that the fact that the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) had relieved Mladen Barisic of his duties as the party's treasurer but kept him in the post of Customs Administration chief showed that the ruling party did not have the will to fight corruption within its own ranks.
"Is it because he has a seat in Parliament and you're afraid that his dismissal may threaten your majority, or is he working for you now?" Anticevic-Marinovic asked Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor during Question Time in Parliament.
"I am under no legal, moral or any other obligation to be accountable to you as to why someone is dismissed from their duties in the HDZ, because we're not answerable to you for what we do in the HDZ," Kosor replied.
Another SDP deputy, Marin Jurjevic, asked the prime minister whether the government proposal to reduce the income tax rate from 45 per cent to 40 per cent for those with higher incomes meant a return to the government policies of the 1990s.
Kosor rejected his interpretation, saying that nearly 1.5 million people would have higher incomes as a result of change of the income taxation system, due to take effect on July 1.
