Huliak to Address Rental of His Ministry's Building as Part of Consolidation

(JOJ 24,'Politika 24', 31 August) Speaking on JOJ 24's discussion programme 'Politika 24' (Politics 24) on Sunday, Tourism and Sport Minister Rudolf Huliak (Independent) said that he plans to address the rental of his ministry's building as part of the consolidation of public finances. Huliak views the rent as overpriced, as it costs the ministry €1.8 million annually. "We are definitely going to hold negotiations with the tenants of our building. In case we fail to find a common solution regarding the rent of our overpriced building, we will consider measures to circumvent this overpriced rent," he said. The minister criticised the way in which EU funds are drawn in Slovakia. He said that shortages in the state budget will need to be replaced with EU funds. "Effective use of EU money means savings," he noted. As the next measures Huliak presented a proposal to get gambling fully under the state control. He claims that a huge portion of gambling has moved to online space, creating thus room for the black economy. Hundreds of millions of euros are annually leaking in this way. He rejected claims by opposition parties that his proposal favours gambling. Huliak also supports the proposal to scrap self-governing regions. He views them as a useless "intermediate piece" that takes away money, calling for the regions to be removed. He said that his Rural Party would also support a proposal by the Slovak National Party (SNS) to reduce the number of self-governing regions from eight to four. The minister also commented on Government Proxy for Investigating the COVID-19 Pandemic Management Peter Kotlar. He criticised him for entering into conflict with scientific authorities instead of addressing the management of the pandemic or the missing manual for handling next pandemics. ko