PS and SaS Blast Interior Ministry Tender for Consultancy Services Worth €33 mn

Bratislava, 19 February (TASR) - Opposition party Progressive Slovakia (PS) has criticised a tender worth nearly €33 million for consultancy and auditing services announced by the Interior Ministry, arguing that instead of saving money and reducing staff numbers during fiscal consolidation, the ministry is hiring external consultants who are twice as expensive as internal employees. This criticism was echoed by the opposition Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) party, which called on the interior minister to scrap the tender immediately and explain to the public why he wants to spend tens of millions of euros in this manner. MP Jaroslav Spisiak (PS) said that Interior Minister Matus Sutaj Estok (Voice-SD) has a complete personnel apparatus at his disposal to carry out everything he needs without consultancy services. "The interior minister has announced a public tender for auditing and consultancy services worth €33 million in three areas. The first area, strategic management of the Interior Ministry, amounts to €11 million, consultancy in human resources is costing €10 million and IT slightly over €10 million. At a time of consolidation, when everyone is supposed to be tightening their belts, he does this," said Spisiak, describing it as a failure by the state when an institution such as a ministry needs to hire consultancy services. As regards the ministry's strategic management, Spisiak said that this should be defined in the government manifesto. "But we won't find it there, only a note stating that the ministry wants to fight illegal migration at the very most," he stated. In the case of HR consultancy, Spisiak claimed that Sutaj Estok has dismissed all experienced police officers and civil servants and replaced them with inexperienced but loyal people. Meanwhile, Spisiak added that PS has designated him as shadow interior minister and that he will seek that post should PS win the 2027 parliamentary elections. MP Jan Hargas (PS) added that the ministry isn't saving money or reducing the number of officials, but hiring consultants who are twice as expensive as internal staff. "To sum up, if the ministry hired experts directly, they would cost around €5,000 to €6,000 monthly, but when purchased as external consultants, it comes to around €9,000 to €11,000," calculated Hargas. SaS said that after the case was made public, the ministry repeatedly changed the tender conditions and extended the deadline for submitting bids. "This only increases suspicions that this is another tailor-made contract. The whole thing looks like another Voice party spree that the public will pay for via their taxes," said SaS MP Martina Bajo Holeckova. mf/df