The Parliamentary committee for education did not approve an opposition request for a deputy inquiry into the purchase of IT equipment for schools across Slovakia from the company Datalan, the SITA newswire reported.
Members of the committee from the ruling coalition ignored the committee meeting convened for Thursday, September 24. Of eleven members, only five opposition deputies came and the committee did not have a quorum. "Two coalition members excused themselves, the remaining ones stated no reason for their absence," said the chairperson of the committee Tatiana Rosová from the Slovak Democratic and Christian Union, SDKÚ-DS.
The opposition MPs claim the IT equipment that Datalan has delivered for distribution to schools is too expensive and can be bought for a much better price on the retail network. Datalan, which has supplied IT equipment for the Justice Ministry, the Culture Ministry, and Sociálna Poisťovňa, won a public tender announced by the Education Ministry's Institute for Information and Prognoses worth €18.7 million, excluding VAT.
According to the contract it will supply 6,165 laptop computers, 19,681 tabletop PCs with operating system and office software installed as well as 3,093 data projectors. The contract also includes basic training for employees of the institute for working with the IT equipment. SITA
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
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