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J&T Rejects Connection to Any Political Party
Tuesday 02 February 2010 Zoom in | Print page
Bratislava, February 2(TASR) - Financial group J&T flatly rejected the allegations of SDKU-DS party chairman Mikulas Dzurinda about links between the group and Prime Minister Robert Fico-led Smer-SD or any other political party earlier on Tuesday.
"J&T Group has always been apolitical, never associating with any political party and has never been involved in politics. It is outrageous that politicians should use J&T in order to attack each other in some fashion. We strongly protest ... and want to ask them to cease and desist," said J&T spokesman Maros Sykora.
Speaking at a news conference on Tuesday, Dzurinda declared that links to J&T incriminate Prime Minister and Chairman of the strongest ruling party Smer-SD of extremely dirty practices. J&T does confirm that it is behind the firm Diamond Hotels UK, the owner of the Crowne Plaza hotel (formerly state-owned Hotel Forum).
But Sykora says that J&T has never owned a company that privatised Hotel Forum. "Behind the company which privatised Forum are our clients. During its acquisition we haven't been involved in any way. For our clients we carried out reconstruction of the hotel, which is no secret," he said.
At the same time Sykora sees nothing nefarious in the fact that Smer-SD took out a loan from J&T Bank prior to the 2002 election. Smer-SD was not the only political party borrowing from the bank. "It was a loan under tight conditions," said Sykora, adding that J&T was repaid.
At a press conference Dzurinda had said earlier Tuesday that Smer-SD borrowed from J&T Bank Sk10 million (€330,000). He also said that J&T was the company that forbade Prime Minister Robert Fico from sacking Finance Minister Jan Pociatek in 2008 over the information leak about the change in Slovak koruna's central parity.
According to Sykora, the statement in question was hyperbole, which any intelligent person must have grasped. "Mr. Dzurinda is deliberately pretending not to have understood, using demagogy as a form of argument. He has to know that it is rubbish."
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