'Slovakia' Party: Fico Didn't Obtain NGO Documents Legally

Bratislava, 21 November (TASR) – Prime Minister Robert Fico (Smer-SD) didn't obtain documents on civil association Projekt Forum by legal means, the 'Slovakia' party stated on Friday, adding that it will file a complaint with the Prosecutor-General's Office. The party claims that the Criminal Office of Financial Administration (KUFS) reviewed subsidies received by the association connected with the family of opposition Progressive Slovakia party leader Michal Simecka, even though such activities don't fall under the office's remit. Speaking at a press conference on Friday, MPs Igor Matovic and Roman Mikulec ('Slovakia') stated that the prime minister instructed head of Financial Administration Jozef Kiss to look into Projekt Forum. "The lists were processed by KUFS and handed over to the director of Financial Administration. As this information has been misused in the hands of Robert Fico, who had no legal right to it, KUFS staff drafted an official record," said Mikulec. According to the party, the record, which it has at its disposal, shows that staff prepared it partly for their own protection, as verifying subsidies doesn't come under KUFS's powers. Matovic noted that five people signed the document. The party plans to submit the complaint to the Prosecutor-General's Office on Friday afternoon. It called on law-enforcement bodies to act. "I likewise call on Prosecutor-General Maros Zilinka to take action because these are the same issues as in the Twilight case," stressed Mikulec. At the end of September, the prime minister convened a press conference to claim that Simecka's mother had misused public grant resources between 2020 and 2023. He announced that a cross check had shown that three entities applied for subsidies for the same project of the Projekt Forum association. In September, Marta Simeckova rejected the prime minister's claims of a plan to siphon money from the state budget for personal enrichment with respect to the Central European Forum project. She admitted that many mistakes had been made in the past, but insisted that the organisation never tried to evade responsibility for them. mf/df