TRANSPORT Minister Ján Počiatek will face a no-confidence motion at a session in parliament starting on December 12 at 9:00. The date has been set by Speaker of Parliament Peter Pellegrini, the TASR newswire reported. He is expected to easily survive as the governing Smer party holds and outright majority in parliament.
Počiatek’s ouster was initiated by opposition Christian Democratic Movement (KDH) which wants to see Počiatek dismissed over a shady competition at the National Highway Company (NDS) for verifying payments with so-called fuel cards for road tolls. The proposal to summon the session was signed by 46 MPs, well above the 30 signatures required by the law to initiate a no-confidence motion, TASR wrote.
KDH deputy chairman Pavol Zajac stated in early December that the winner of the bid has secured incomes amounting to €135 million over 13 years by collecting 6.15 percent of each payment.
“This is several times as much as collected by banks for payments with credit cards,” Zajac said, as quoted by TASR, adding that company Paywell presented the bid in the competition only a day after it was founded.
He maintains that the tender was “tailor-made for a certain company that is running the service without any competition and it is called Fleetpay”, as reported by TASR.
The competition as such was won by Paywell, but references on its behalf were provided by Fleetpay, which had been providing this service since the tolls were launched. It was given the commission from the state without a tender, a fact that was criticised by the European Commission. The EU then launched proceedings that were halted after the new tender that saw the eventual victory of Paywell announced, said Zajac.
“We have a serious suspicion that the other company that took part in the tender was also backed by Fleetpay,” Zajac said, as quoted by TASR, adding that both Paywell and Fleetpay seem to be only shell companies with unknown owners.
Source: TASR
Compiled by Radka Minarechová from press reports
The Slovak Spectator cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information presented in its Flash News postings.
