Social Democratic Party (SDP) MP, Sinisa Hajdas-Doncic, told reporters in Parliament on Thursday that he and SDP Vice-president Pedja Grbin had reported Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic to the parliamentary Conflict of Interest Commission over alleged conflict of interest in the drafting of the law on emergency administration, dubbed Lex Agrokor.

“Grbin and me have analysed the material concerning Plenkovic’s role in the drafting of Lex Agrokor, and we reported him today to the Commission, helping it to launch proceedings against him,” said Hajdas-Doncic, adding that they did it on their own behalf, as MPs, and not on behalf of their party.

Commenting on Plenkovic’s role in the affair, Hajdas-Doncic said that it concerned “the hiring of some partners to write Lex Agrokor, as evident from the e-mails and media reports”.

Asked where he saw elements of conflict of interest, Hajdas Doncic said that “the law is very clear – ministries, whenever they draft a law, must form an expert task force for that purpose and if they need expert advice, they pay external consultants for it.”

“The situation in this case is very clear and simple – they avoided forming a task force and instead hired people who later sought renumeration exclusively from Agrokor. As will be seen in the coming months, Lex Agrokor will have major financial repercussions for the state budget, and those repercussions can already be seen because pension funds have incurred losses, just as the state-owned banks HBOR and HPB have lost a portion of their claims. So this is definitely an instance of conflict of interest on the part of the Prime Minister, and a case of undemocratic and non-transparent drafting of legislation,” Hajdas-Doncic said.

Dismissing the government’s claims that it had worked under tight deadlines, Hajdas-Doncic said that “they (government) could have sought and paid for advice from a law school, or any other expert, and no one can tell me that a law with fewer than 30 articles can cost more than 200,000 kuna (to draft).” He added that Plenkovic’s actions were to the benefit of the members of the mailing group which drafted the law, and to the detriment of public interest.

Earlier in the day, SDP party whip Arsen Bauk had said that SDP would not report Plenkovic to the Commission yet, as they “could do it at any time.”

“The public is now preoccupied with the e-mails and his (Plenkovic’s) relatively unsuccessful attempts to distance himself from the whole affair,” Bauk said, adding that SDP was waiting for more information so it could submit a well-substantiated report.

Bauk said he believed that the Conflict of Interest Commission could also launch proceedings against Prime Minister Plenkovic on its own, although its chair Natasa Novakovic told Nova TV on Wednesday that it would not launch any proceedings until it collected all relevant information.

The Commission examines complaints it receives before deciding whether to launch formal investigation into each individual case of suspected conflict of interest involving public officials. If allegations are proven, the Commission can order officials in question to pay fines.

Follow N1 via mobile apps for Android | iPhone/iPad | Windows| and social media on Twitter | Facebook.