Mečiar: GM wouldn't buy ZTS for 1 Sk

Meeting with workers in eastern Slovakia on July 14, Prime Minister Vladimír Mečiar was accused of not helping the ailing armaments factory ZTS Dubnica by refusing General Motors' offer to buy it. Mečiar responded by saying that his government offered to sell the firm to GM for 1 crown, to build villas with swimming pools for the managers in the nearby spa town of Trenčianské Teplice, and to send a helicopter to Vienna weekly to buy goods for the managers' wives. "They did not accept it," Mečiar said, alleging that GM's offer was not "serious." GM responded the next day by saying it "would not have negotiated with the Slovak government for more than 10 months if it did not seriously want to carry out the project."