Finance Minister Matovič has a new way of boosting vaccination: €500 vouchers

The vouchers should be given to old people who decide to get vaccinated, to be subsequently spent on goods and services.

Finance Minister Igor Matovič presented his latest idea to boost vaccination rate and help businesses hit by the pandemic.Finance Minister Igor Matovič presented his latest idea to boost vaccination rate and help businesses hit by the pandemic. (Source: TASR)

Finance Minister Igor Matovič, who chairs the biggest coalition party of Ordinary People and Independent Personalities (OĽaNO), has come up with another idea to increase the vaccination rate among old people.

SkryťTurn off ads
Article continues after video advertisement
SkryťTurn off ads
Article continues after video advertisement

After introducing a lottery for the vaccinated, which did not help a lot to boost interest in vaccination against Covid, he now wants the state to give €500 vouchers to people aged 60 and over who get vaccinated.

Subsequently, they (or their children or grandchildren) are supposed to use these vouchers in selected shops, companies or service operators. This includes accommodation facilities, restaurants and cafés, theatres, galleries and cinemas, as well as hairdressers’, beauty salons, water parks, wellness centres, fitness centres and sports clubs.

SkryťTurn off ads

Matovič wants to help those hit by the pandemic. The state should allocate €500 million for this purpose, the SITA newswire reported.

Why prefer vaccines to drugs? The Covid jab protects better and it is cheaper Read more 

The idea lacks the support of the junior coalition party Freedom and Solidarity (SaS), which even said that with this proposal Matovič has violated the agreement the coalition had made.

How should it work?

Matovič expects the vouchers to help with the vaccination of about 380,000 people older than 60, who belong among risky groups. In the end, there might be as many as one million vaccinated elders.

The rest of this article is premium content at Spectator.sk
Subscribe now for full access

I already have subscription - Sign in

Subscription provides you with:
  • Immediate access to all locked articles (premium content) on Spectator.sk
  • Special weekly news summary + an audio recording with a weekly news summary to listen to at your convenience (received on a weekly basis directly to your e-mail)
  • PDF version of the latest issue of our newspaper, The Slovak Spectator, emailed directly to you
  • Access to all premium content on Sme.sk and Korzar.sk

Top stories

Two bear incidents over weekend, an effort to revive Bratislava calvary, and storks in Trnava.


Píšem or pišám?

"Do ľava," (to the left) I yelled, "Nie, do prava" (no, to the right), I gasped. "Dolšie," I screamed. "Nie, nie, horšie..." My Slovak girlfriend collapsed in laughter. Was it something I said?


Matthew J. Reynolds
Czech biochemist Jan Konvalinka.

Jan Konvalinka was expecting a pandemic before Covid-19 came along.


SkryťClose ad