ZAGREB, December 3, 2019 - The GONG nongovernmental organisation said on Tuesday that it was intolerable that the government was disregarding laws and undermining the work of the independent Commission for the Prevention of Conflict of Interest, noting that a team should be sent to investigate the government for hiding documents in the Helsinki case.
"We are witnessing a situation in which an important anti-corruption body, chaired by Nataša Novaković, a week before International Anti-Corruption Day, December 9, is closing the Helsinki case because the prime minister and the government are persistently refusing to hand over documents on a trip to a meeting of the European People's Party (EPP) in Helsinki in late 2018," GONG said.
The NGO believes that the Commissioner for Information should send a team to investigate the government for hiding information, which, under the law, should be available to every citizen.
It therefore called on the Information Commissioner to act ex officio and send an inspection team to the government to help determine facts in the Helsinki case.
Novakovic said earlier in the day that no proceedings would be initiated against Plenković and several current and former ministers from the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) for their trip to Helsinki on 7 and 8 November 2018 as the Conflict of Interest Commission had not been provided with necessary documents and data from the competent departments.
The Commission decided that the officials in question had violated principles of conduct as prescribed by legislation on the prevention of conflict of interest and acted irresponsibly and non-transparently by non-delivering the requested documents.
More news about the conflict of interest issues can be found in the Politics section.
