A SEVERANCE package worth €178,000 that is to be paid to Marcela Hrdá, the former director of Slovak Post is an “outrageous golden parachute” said Transport Minister Ján Počiatek on June 4, reporting that during the tenure of KDH chairman Ján Figeľ as transport minister (2010-12), the ministry had signed a contract with Hrdá leading to this payout, the TASR newswire reported.
“An overwhelming majority of this golden parachute is based on improvements in Slovak Post’s economic performance,” Počiatek stated, as quoted by TASR, while adding that Slovak Post’s performance was supposedly improved by cutting its loss in 2011 from €12 million to €8 million. “But the cut was not thanks to improvements in operational results but thanks to an accounting operation in adjusting entry items vis-a-vis a lawsuit in which the plaintiff had died.”
Hrdá was replaced at the helm of Slovak Post by Tomáš Drucker on May 29.
Figeľ admitted he had signed the employment contract with Hrdá but said he was surprised by the amount of the severance payment. But he refused to call it a golden parachute because the severance was based on three monthly salaries being paid and the remaining amount based on better performance by Slovak Post.
“The former director will get nothing as the past director of the board but a three-month severance as the general director,” Figeľ said, reporting that this amount comes to €7,000. “The rest [of the severance] concerns the fulfilment of the contract, which follows standard principles. One of them is motivation based on higher economic results and a competition appendix that forbids activities in this sphere of business after leaving the company,” Figeľ stated.
