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Dzurinda: Privatisation Under My Government Went On Transparently
Wednesday 25 November 2009 Zoom in | Print page
Bratislava, November 25 (TASR) - SDKU-DS chairman and former prime minister Mikulas Dzurinda is convinced that privatisation carried out under his government (1998-2006) took place in a standard and transparent way, he told TASR on Wednesday.
Dzurinda was speaking in reaction to publicised accusations by former employees of Erste Bank that this Austrian financial institution used to ensure acquisitions in Central and Easter Europe via bribing top political representatives. Apart from other banks in the region, Erste Bank acquired state-owned Slovenska Sporitelna in 2001.
"I'm hearing it for the first time ... I don't have any information about it. But this is how it goes in the free world - when somebody has such information or suspicions, they should act. I take this into consideration, in a deep conviction that our privatisation took place in a transparent, standard manner," Dzurinda told TASR.
According to the information provided by Czech server idnes.cz on Tuesday, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has started an investigation of the circumstances of privatisation of Ceska Sporitelna (now owned by Erste Bank) that took place nine years ago.
Slovak daily Hospodarske Noviny brought similar information in October, according to which, Erste Bank used corruption practices in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Romania, in order to get to acquisitions.
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