Opposition Slovak Democratic and Christian Union (SDKÚ) MP Tatiana Rosová has described the arguments of Education Minister Ján Mikolaj (a Slovak National Party (SNS) nominee) about the controversial disbursement of European Union funds by organisations directly controlled by his ministry as ‘duplicitous buck-passing’.
Speaking on May 26 she said “[Mikolaj] cannot shift responsibility to organisations that fall directly under him, and on the management of which he directly decides by himself.” At the same time, she said that there was clear responsibility on Mikolaj's side.
“Besides buck-passing, the minister demonstrated today the ability to lie in a live broadcast. It is not true that the public procurement, or tendering, which was dealt with today in the pages of the Pravda daily was ever published in a bulletin,” she continued, adding that neither the announcement of the tender, nor its result were ever published.
Pravda wrote on Tuesday, May 26, that European Union funds for education flow through a company owned by a Žilina-based entrepreneur who has known Mikolaj since childhood – Martin Kováčik of Consulting-Education. According to the daily, the company has won tenders in suspicious competitions – one of the tenders was placed only on an internal ministry notice board, as was the case with the infamous tenders at the Construction and Regional Development Ministry that cost former minister Marian Janušek (also SNS) his post.
According to the minister, the ministry is not a superior authority for public procurement for the organisations that it directly controls. He also emphasised that nobody raised any objections to the results of the tender. TASR
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
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