SaS: Office Led by Kmec Distributing Millions to Friends and Garage Firms

Bratislava, 13 November (TASR) - Current events at the Office of the Vice-premier for the Recovery Plan and a Knowledge-based Economy Peter Kmec (Voice-SD) prove that wherever there are nominees of the coalition Voice-SD party, public funds are wasted, shady deals are made, and state money leaks out to various suspect firms, opposition Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) party leader Branislav Groehling told a news conference on Thursday, adding that his party is preparing a criminal complaint in this connection. "The latest finding about the activities of the Vice-premier for the Recovery Plan, Mr. Kmec, concerns the scandalous redistribution of €200 million from the state budget, from all of our money," stressed Groehling. Groehling recalled several pieces of information that have appeared in the media in the past couple of days concerning subsidies for suspect firms with ties to the Voice-SD party. He also pointed to the case of another 'garage firm', DBC Slovakia, which was only set up last year and is based in a waste-collection yard, with neither employees, nor a website. Last year, it reported sales amounting to €13,300 and a profit of €80. Despite this, it received a subsidy of almost €1.5 million for blood diagnostics research. "This is outrageous audacity, what Voice is demonstrating here, what this governing coalition is doing here. Money that should have been invested in innovation, biotechnology and robotics will end up in the hands of friends, sponsors who have ties to the Voice-SD party," said Groehling. He compared the distribution of money by the vice-premier's office to a scheme that was in place in the past under former education minister Peter Plavcan (Slovak National Party/SNS), who had to resign from his post as a result. Ex-state secretary and SaS expert in science and research Ludovit Paulis added that the problem is even more serious than the recipients themselves, as it is the whole system of allocating subsidies that has failed. "It's not just about who got the millions. The evaluation mechanism itself failed. The vice-premier's office created an internal commission that it chose itself, without a selection process. It didn't provide assessments to applicants, nor did it publish scores, rankings or evaluations. This is almost identical to the scheme that led to Plavcan's scandals in the past," stated Paulis. It's absolutely standard for such calls to use foreign evaluators and a panel evaluation to avoid conflicts of interest, he added. The vice-premier's office has denied several similar allegations in recent days and is preparing a press conference on the issue later on Thursday. ko/df