President Ivan Gašparovič on January 30 accepted the resignation of Defence Minister František Kašický (Smer-SD) and accepted Prime Minister Robert Fico's proposal to appoint State Secretary of the Defense Ministry Jaroslav Baška to the post. The proposal to dismiss Baška as State Secretary in preparation for this move was approved earlier in the day.
Kašický resigned on January 25 after accepting responsibility for a trio of inflated tenders amounting to Sk3.9 billion (€115 million) for cleaning and maintenance work at the ministry. TASR
p>Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
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