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Another candidate for the dodgy contracts hall of fame.
(From The Slovak Spectator)
IT MIGHT make a good shaggy dog story if it wasn't actually so serious: the junior ruling coalition member, the Slovak National Party (SNS), now has its third minister under the media spotlight over yet another questionable contract.
It is just the latest in a depressing and increasingly frequent series of candidates for inclusion in the dodgy contracts hall of fame under the government of Prime Minister Robert Fico.
The Academia Istropolitana and the State Institute of Professional Education, which are both funded by the Education Ministry, have awarded hefty contracts to a former classmate of Education Minister Jan Mikolaj.
What gives the story, broken by the Pravda daily, such an ironic spin is that the businessman involved, Marian Kovacik, reportedly bragged about having it all "a arranged with Jan. We will make sure that he is happy and that he supports us and then we will settle the rest," Kovacik allegedly said to a clerk at the academy, according to an official record dated October 2007 obtained by the daily.
The minister's response wasn't any less ironic: he said there are about 200,000 people named Jan in Slovakia.
Just like another Jan from the SNS -- Jan Chrbet, sacked over his reluctance to disclose details of the controversial sale of Slovakia's excess CO2 emissions quotas -- or another SNS nominee -- former construction minister Marian Janusek, pushed by Fico to resign over the infamous bulletin-board tender, which has since been ruled illegal -- Mikolaj claims that everything that happened was in line with the law.
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