The Bonaparte complex. (source: Sme - Jozef Jakubčo)
Speaker of Parliament and chairman of the coalition party, SNS, Andrej Danko suddenly lost eight cars in a single year, while Prime Minister Robert Fico (Smer party) does not own his watch, worth €20,000, and President Andrej Kiska officially does not own a house in his hometown of Poprad.
The law on property returns is toothless, according to experts, and it does not disclose how public officials really live. Even politicians themselves admit this.
“I’m not against such issues, and I will really initiate some of these things,” Danko told the private channel Markíza in mid-September.
The Sme daily scrutinised the property of three top constitutional officials more closely.
Andrej Kiska
Recently, President Andrej Kiska divided his July net income from his public position among ten families in need. Each of them received €497.80 from the president’s salary. Kiska has been dividing his salary in this way since he was elected. He can afford to do so, since he owns shares in several companies. In 2016 alone he had income of more than €255,000 from concluded contracts. Before the presidential election, he claimed to own property worth at least six million euros, and to earn about €700,000 a year.
He became rich years ago when he sold his prosperous leasing companies to VÚB bank and focused on philanthropy. Among his immovables, Kiska claims a building with a courtyard in Poprad, on the corner of Alžbetina and Bernolákova Streets. The Consumer Finance Holding loan company in which Kiska was also active is in that location. In addition, Kiska declared a grassy area near the village of Veľký Slavkov in his property return.
However, he does not declare the house in Poprad in which he lives. Officially, the house belongs to his wife.
According to the property return, Kiska has shares in three companies as well. One of them, KTAG, became famous recently when it was widely publicised that it had paid Kiska's campaign expenses. Kiska’s plane, a Piper PA-34 Seneca, whose price is around €550,000, is also officially owned by this company.
Andrej Danko
While Kiska's real estate can be easily traced, as president even stating the plot number, SNS chairman Danko is more secretive.
Besides his state salary, he had an income of more than €236,000 last year. Similarly to Kiska, he claims that his money comes from before he entered politics. In his property return, he declares that the money represents income from a legal counselorship completed as of April 15, 2016.
Among his officially owned real estate there are two vineyards, one unfinished house, one family villa, an apartment, three garages, two non-residential sites and two gardens. It is impossible to specify what the real estate is in fact, as he did not publish plot numbers or the deeds of ownership.
n the past, several of his properties were discovered by the tabloids. In fact, the “unfinished house” Danko describes in his property return is probably a villa worth half a million euros, with several terraces, a pool and a garage for three cars, in the Bratislava borough of Dúbravka. Apart from this, Danko also owns a family villa in the village of Miloslavov near Bratislava, where his family from his previous marriage lives.
Moreover, Danko does not conceal his weakness for cars. In his 2015 property return he had nine of them. “Like probably every man, I love fast cars,” Danko told the Nový Čas daily in 2014 when he bought a second-hand Ford Mustang for €15,000. “I sometimes forget my foot on the gas pedal, and the police have even caught me speeding,” he admitted.
However, in the recently published 2016 property return, Danko only mentions one car. It cannot be specified whether it is the Mustang, the luxury Mercedes or BMW he also owned in the past, for example.
Danko also declares a share in one company – it is supposed to be S&D HOUSE, Ltd., according to the Trade Register. SBS Dynasty, in which he operated between 1999 and 2005, ceased to exist last year. According to the Gorilla file, the secret service spied on Dynasty in the long term, due to suspicion of illegal activities, and its owner, Miroslav Guman, due to suspicion of cooperating with gang members.
Robert Fico
The prime minister has the most modest property return. Just like Danko, he wears luxury watches from the limited Swiss edition IWC Kurt Klaus, worth €20,000. While Danko mentions his watch in his return, Fico does not – in the long term. The PM claims it was a gift from his wife Svetlana, on the occasion of several personal holidays on the break of 2008-2009. In 2013, a Cartier watch for €7,900 appeared on his wrist. Since the price does not exceed the 35-multiple of the minimum wage (i.e. €15,225), he does not have to declare it in the property return.
As for his real estate, for many years Fico has been declaring a weekend cottage on Rudava Lake, and a desolate vineyard near Bratislava. He does not mention other real estate.
It is publicly known that he lives in the Bonaparte development, in a flat rented from businessman Ladislav Bašternák. Until recently, one wall of his flat was adjacent to the flat owned by a businessman listed on the lists of Mafiosi, Marián Kočner. The prime minister claims that his family pays €2,650 a month as rent, while he earns about €4,000 without the flat refunds all politicians receive. Fico's wife, who is a law professor and has a legal agency, can help him pay the rent.
© Sme
