The Slovak Democratic and Christian Union (SDKÚ) will not support the proposal of Economy Minister Juraj Miškov to dismiss Anna Bubeníková as the chair of the National Property Fund (FNM), saying the proposal is based on ill-founded accusations, the Sme daily reported.
Bubeníková is featured in the leaked document codenamed Gorilla, which was allegedly prepared by the Slovak Information Service (SIS) intelligence agency regarding reported influence of the Penta financial group on Slovak politicians in 2005 and 2006. Dzurinda said that Bubeníková has denied the accusations in the document which purportedly describe her as a mediator between the firm and politicians.
“I heard that during the rule of Robert Fico’s government the police investigated the case, but they did not start any criminal prosecution,” said Dzurinda, as quoted by Sme, adding that he cannot believe that “the state institutions during Fico’s ruling would have been so merciful to them”. He stressed that if there are any doubts about the investigation, the responsible authorities should launch another one.
Finance Minister Ivan Mikloš added that the Freedom and Solidarity party (SaS), which is Miškov’s party, agreed with Bubeníková’s nomination to the post of the chair of FNM without any objections, the TASR newswire reported. He also stressed that SaS chief Richard Sulik inquired about the information mentioned in Gorilla at the time, but after a mutual discussion they came to the conclusion that the veracity of the document had not been confirmed by investigators.
Other politicians have also doubted the veracity of the Gorilla document. Chair of the Most-Híd party Béla Bugár said in the political talk show on the private television TV Markíza that not all of the information of the document is correct. He responded to the information that he had been trying to influence the stock redemption of the company Transpetrol by the state, saying that it was the agenda of then-economy minister Jirko Malchárek, TASR wrote.
Meanwhile, SaS party started to collect 30 signatures from MPs to summon a special session of parliament to discuss the Gorilla document. Though SaS has only 18 MPs in parliament, it believes that it will find enough lawmakers in other parties interested in seeing the document, TASR reported.
Source: Sme, TASR
For more information about this story please see: Slovak politics gripped by Gorilla file
Compiled by Radka Minarechová Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
The Slovak Spectator cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information presented in its Flash News postings.
