Prime Minister Iveta Radičová says she is ready to sign a contract with the Slovak Biathlon Association provided that the association chooses a new contractor for construction work and that all doubts about the shady use of financial resources are cleared up, the TASR newswire reported, citing the Government Office press department on Friday, August 12.
Radičová said that she honestly wants Slovakia to host the 2012 European Biathlon Championship, but said that for construction work to be carried out by a company suspected of corruption was unacceptable. "The corruption is unacceptable and we won't ever tolerate it," she stated.
On August 10, Radičová had announced that the reconstruction of the sports area at Osrblie (Banská Bystrica Region), which is supposed to host the 2012 European Biathlon Championships, would not be financed from the state budget as originally planned, due to corruption. Originally, the state was to have provided €1.6 million for reconstruction work.
"At the same time, a couple of people emerged who began to act as if they had the right to 10 percent of this sum. We caught such collectors red-handed before they get their schemes off the ground, however," Radičová said on August 10.
According to Interior Minister Daniel Lipšic, three people have been charged with indirect corruption after being arrested while accepting a bribe of €30,000 in late July. He estimated that the case could be resolved by the end of 2011. "It would be premature to go into the details of the case at this point," he said.
Source: TASR
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
The Slovak Spectator cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information presented in its Flash News postings.
