THE CEO and board of directors chairman of the state-owned Tipos lottery company Ladislav Kriška has offered his resignation after the Sme daily reported him using the company card in a luxury store in Prague.
“Mr Kriška assumed personal responsibility for the situation and offered his resignation,” Finance Minister Peter Kažimír said, as quoted by the TASR newswire, “which I accepted.”
Sme broke the story indicating that during his private shopping at a luxury store in Prague, Kriška paid with a Tipos credit card. The daily claimed that it has a document which proves that on October 4, 2014, this Smer nominee paid €4,847.70 with a gold Tipos credit card at luxury goods outlet “Baldinini - Široká” in downtown Prague. Kriška also used the company credit card to pay €85.87 at the Prague hotel InterContinental.
In that time Kriška accompanied his daughter who underwent surgery in Prague and paid for it with his personal credit card. He exceeded his own credit card limit and since his purchases in the outlet were already accounted Kriška decided to use the business card, says the official Tipos statement provided to Sme beginning with the words: “a child is a priority for every parent as it was in case of Mr Kriška”.
In his response, Kriška maintained that he did not violate any rules and sent money back.
“It’s important to say that I haven’t violated any law or internal regulation of Tipos company,” he said, as quoted by TASR.
Sme wrote that he returned money more than a month after having used the card. The internal Tipos rules however enable managers to use company credit cards for private purposes, but with the obligation to return the money within 15 days, according to the SITA newswire.
The private purchase is not Kriška’s first dubious payment. Back in May the company paid €49,000 excluding VAT to ad agency Jandl for the “manual of crisis communication” while another well known agency does similar manuals under €20,000, according to Sme.
