Representatives of the ruling majority in the parliament's commission of inquiry probing INA's privatisation on Tuesday turned down a proposal by Social Democrat Gordan Maras that the commission should summon Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor to testify before this body in order to establish who said the truth: former PM Ivo Sanader, who claimed that in her capacity as Deputy Prime Minister Kosor had been involved in the final stage of preparations of amendments to INA shareholders agreement, or Kosor, whose cabinet denied that she participated in those preparations.
"Sanader said that Kosor was his deputy in the course of negotiations, and the government has denied it. Now it should be stablished who is telling us the truth," the SDP official said.
Representatives of the ruling majority dismissed his motion as an "irrelevant provocation".
Josip Salapic of the ruling Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) said that Sanader had several times said that Kosor had not been on the then government's task force in charge of INA's privatisation.
The ruling majority also dismissed Maras's interpretation that the current PM should answer question why the Fund of Homeland Defence War Veterans had sold its stock in INA to MOL, thus enabling the Hungarians to acquire a majority package in the Croatian oil and gas company.
Maras said that at that time Kosor was at the helm of the Fund's board, but Goran Maric of the HDZ replied that it was the company in charge of managing the Fund that "made an investment decision, and not a political one, on the sale of the shares".
The representatives of the ruling majority are against calling any new witnesses as this would prolong the work of this body.
The parliamentary commission, which is expected to finish its work by 23 October, will convene on Friday to discuss a text of the report it is going to forward to the parliament.
Lawmakers are to vote on this report on Monday.
The commission's chairwoman, Dragica Zgrebec (SDP), said later on Tuesday that Sanader's testimony had been as expected and that it confirmed data from documentation available to the commission.
"Sanader confirmed some things evident from the documentation which the government has forwarded. This means that the decisions were made by the government, that discussions were held several times at the government's meetings and this was also confirmed by Polancec's testimony," she said.
Zgrebec did not want to say whether Sanader's testimony was harmful to Kosor.
Sanader was the last of seven witnesses summoned by this commission in July.
The other six witnesses -- Slavko Linic, Ljubo Jurcic, Tomislav Dragicevic, Ivan Suker, Damir Polancec and Zoltan Aldott -- were questioned by the commission on 13 and 14 September, when Sanader was abroad.
Linic, a former deputy Prime Minister and former INA supervisory board chairman, Jurcic, a former economy minister, and Dragicevic, a former chairman of INA's managing board, testified about the sale of 25 percent plus one share in INA to Hungary's MOL in 2002.
Suker, who is current Deputy Prime Minister and INA supervisory board chairman, Polancec, a former deputy PM and former economy minister, and Aldott, the current chairman of INA's managing board, testified about alterations to the shareholders' agreement and the divestiture of the gas business from INA in the period from 2003 to 2009.
