Fico: Anti-corruption Foundation Has Never Protected Fraudster Before

Bratislava, 27 April (TASR) - It has never happened in Slovakia's history before that a foundation fighting corruption would protect a person who committed a subsidy fraud, Prime Minister Robert Fico (Smer-SD) said at a press conference on Monday. Fico was responding to findings by the Let's Stop Corruption Foundation regarding the provision of subsidies. Fico said the case of alleged subsidy fraud committed by the mother of Michal Simecka, the leader of opposition's Progressive Slovakia (PS), emerged during audits at ministries. He underlined that the damage is approaching €140,000. "From these audits, information suddenly emerged that there had probably been unauthorised handling of allocated subsidies. So we focused on some that appeared most frequently," Fico said, adding that a cross-check was carried out between the justice and culture ministries. "This cross-check showed us that the mother of the leader of Progressive Slovakia, Ms. Simeckova, repeatedly had the same invoices reimbursed. A massive subsidy fraud," the prime minister said. He also noted that Marta Simeckova allegedly owes 150,000 euros to the European Commission and is subject to distraint proceedings because she has not yet repaid the money. Justice Minister Boris Susko (Smer-SD) explained that under subsidy terms, an applicant makes a declaration of oath that they are not receiving funding for the same project from other public sources. "That was the first irregularity we found. The second was that we discovered the same invoice, which Project Forum paid to its supplier, was reimbursed up to three times by three different institutions," Susko said. Fico also referred to Simecka's statements about loans to Project Forum. "How can you use foundation money received as a state subsidy to repay a loan? (...) Today we have this information for the first time, that Simecka was sending money to his mother. The mother was sending money to him. Evidently from the resources of this foundation. And if these were funds that were indeed income of this civic association as a subsidy from a state institution, then this is another huge problem. It is another serious breach of the law," he said. In response, Simecka said the prime minister did not deny the foundation's findings at the press conference. "He only voiced insults, lied and spoke about my family, as usual," he said, accusing Fico of ignoring problems bedevilling the people and focusing only on political revenge. "We have rising energy prices, a huge cost-of-living crisis, but Fico is dealing with my mother," he added. According to findings published by the Let's Stop Corruption Foundation, the Financial Administration's Criminal Office (KUFS) had examined the finances of several associations despite lacking the power to do so. These reportedly include Project Forum. Simecka believes KUFS carried out checks on political orders and hacked into the accounts of the civic association and his mother. Simecka said he had provided the association with a loan of 5,200 euros, of which 5,000 euros was later repaid. The Financial Administration said the claims in the foundation's article were untrue, describing them as inaccurate, distorted and deliberately misleading. mf