A separation package worth €178,000 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's as transport minister (2010-12), Hrdá had signed a contract with the ministry under which she would receive €178,000 in severance, the TASR newswire reported.
"An overwhelming majority of this golden parachute is based on improvements in Slovak Post's economic performance. This performance was supposedly improved by slashing its planned loss in 2011 from €12 million to €8 million. But the cut of €4 million was not thanks to improvements in operational results but thanks to an accounting operation in adjusting entry items vis-à-vis a lawsuit in which the plaintiff died," Počiatek stated, as quoted by the TASR newswire.
Počiatek added that former transport minister Ján Figeľ from the Christian Democratic Movement (KDH) must have known about the severance provisions in Hrdá's contract as Figeľ had approved the contract by a decision of the ministry, the sole shareholder in Slovak Post, and because the contract includes his signature. Počiatek indicated that the ministry probably will not be able to avoid paying the severance package to Hrdá. Hrdá was replaced at the helm of Slovak Post by Tomáš Drucker on May 29.
The spokesman for KDH, Matej Kováč, told the Sme daily that KDH considers the amount of the severance too high and but said that minister Počiatek, instead of criticising, should change the contracts in such cases, charging that it was during Smer chairman Robert Fico's first government (2006-10) that “outrageous severance packages” in (state-run) companies on the verge of bankruptcy were being signed, without reporting any specific severance contracts.
Figeľ did not make a statement regarding the severance package for Hrdá on May 4, Sme wrote.
Source: TASR, Sme
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
The Slovak Spectator cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information presented in its Flash News postings.
