Remisova: Voderady Purchased for €5 million in 2021, Now Sold for €17 Million

Bratislava, 8 December (TASR) - The entire Voderady outlet was purchased by the Voderady Property company in 2021 for exactly €5 million, but four years later it was sold to the state for €17 million, opposition MP Veronika Remisova ('Slovakia'–'For the People' caucus) told a press conference on Monday. In order to make the purchase, the National Innovation and Technology Centre (NITC) received the money from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister for the Recovery Plan and a Knowledge-based Economy led by Peter Kmec (Voice-SD) who resigned recently. Remisova stated that it was Kmec's duty to check all the necessary details properly, and if the property was sold for €5 million in 2021, it was neither economical nor efficient for the state to buy it for €17 million. In response to the criticism, Kmec stated last week that an assessor gave it a €19.3-million price tag. "I call on Mr. Drucker [the Education Minister, now in charge of managing the deputy prime minister's office] to immediately publish all documents regarding the Voderady and subsidies cases and to tell the Slovak people when the amount of €17 million will be returned to them. I also expect Mr. Kmec to leave politics for good after this scandal," stated Remisova, adding that she's filing a criminal complaint with the Prosecutor-General's Office while attaching the contract and all suspicions surrounding the case to it. In a video posted on a social network, Kmec described the campaign against NITC as the opposition Progressive Slovakia (PS) party's revenge for the thwarting of plans to build an innovation centre for €700 million in Bratislava. He added that the decision to build an innovation centre in Voderady was made instead "and, most importantly, up to 70 times cheaper". Kmec also referred to a statement from a real-estate agency owner who said that since 2021, the price for Voderady has never been negotiated below €18 million. jrg/df