Interior Minister Tomáš Drucker, during the April 11 cabinet session. (source: SITA)
The wife of the Interior Minister (until recently, the health minister, a non-partisan Smer nominee) Tomáš Drucker, will end all her business activities, Drucker announced on April 11 after the cabinet session. It was his response to accusations of opposition OĽaNO’s leader Igor Matovič, the Sme daily wrote.
After Matovič published the information on Druckerová’s shady and extremely cheap purchase of land, Drucker reacted on April 9 by saying that a company called Logaro, owned by his spouse, acquired land in Špačince at the end of 2016 for €8.94 per square meter, VAT-free.
The bone of contention
“During 2017, preparatory work was carried out on these plots of land, while during the process another developer company expressed interest in buying the land, whose purchase price was €37 per square meter at that time,” the minister alleged, as quoted by the TASR newswire. “The entire area, including the land owned by Logaro, was sold off at the end of 2017.”
Matovič pointed out that if Logaro had expenditures related to cabling and plumbing work, these would have been listed in its statement of finances, but nothing of the sort can be found there. “If it’s not in the statement, they violated the law – or it was paid in cash. If not, who paid those expenditures, then?” the OĽaNo leader asked. He also believes that Logaro, which owned the plots of land for a year, made a profit of more than a quarter of a million euros from their subsequent sale.
However, Matovič does not even find the sum of €37 VAT-free, as declared by Drucker, to be plausible. He pointed to statements by Špačince mayor Július Zemko (Smer), according to whom the price per square meter there stands at €100-120.
The OĽaNO leader also cast doubt on another purchase of land in Trnava, which Drucker claimed is agricultural land because the Land Plan does not allow any construction work. “This plot was purchased at €0.85 per square meter, the regular market price for the given location and state of the land,” Drucker reacted.
Offer by Matovič
In his response, Matovič pointed to Logaro’s statement of finance, which indicates that the company purchased the land for construction purposes. “If they maintain that these plots of land have a market value of only 90 cents per square meter, then I’m extending a public offer: I’ll give them €1.80 per square meter. I know that we’ll be able to sell it off for at least €40 per square meter. And let the public decide about the distribution of the €3 million profit,” the leader of opposition party suggested.
Another opposition party, SaS, announced on April 10 that if Drucker fails to explain the serious suspicions, the party is ready to initiate the convening of an extraordinary parliamentary session aimed at ousting him.
Explanation
Logaro, owned by Drucker’s wife, bought the land in Špačince from a firm called Mlynské Pole. Drucker denies accusations of any affiliation between Mlynské Pole and Rempo, the latter firm concluding contracts with the Slovak Post when Drucker served as its SP’s CEO. Mlynské Pole is run by the son of Rempo’s owner.
Both Drucker and representatives of Mlynské Pole called Matovič’s claims sensation- and scandal-seeking. The minister responded positively to his public offer of buying out the land in Trnava, owned by Drucker’s wife, for twice the price she paid for it, TASR learnt on April 10.
The next day, however, interior minister announced that his wife would end her enterprises, saying, as quoted by the SITA newswire, that the reasons are not the fabricated accusations of Igor Matovič but rather his own public position, which he wants to perform in peace, and without slanted accusations. Drucker added, as cited by SITA, that he would not further react to Matovič’s statements.
