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NKU Casts Doubt on Use of Almost €4 mn within Notice-board Tender
Monday 08 March 2010 Zoom in | Print page
Bratislava, March 8 (TASR) - The Supreme Audit Office (NKU) on Monday released a report on the inspection into the use of money within the so-called notice-board tender at the Construction and Regional Development Ministry, expressing doubts on the use of almost €4 million.
Construction and Regional Development Minister Igor Stefanov earlier in the day said that NKU has found that of the total amount of €13 million, a total of €32,000 (0.2 percent) wasn't paid out in line with the stipulated purpose.
The NKU stated, however, that even though certain scrutinised documents didn't contain results of the legal assistance provided by the winning consortium, the legal services "were directed towards meeting the goals of the Operational Programmes". The purpose of the use of the resources wasn't therefore violated, said NKU.
The inspection "was not able to receive a proper assurance on meeting the purpose of money spent that exceeded €3.14 million", as those expenditures were based only on declarations by the provider that the services had been delivered. In the case of further costs worth €840,000, "the connection to the material content of the project with respect to the target group was not clearly demonstrated".
The Construction and Regional Development Ministry in 2007 announced a tender for supplying various legal and advertising services co-financed by EU Funds solely on a notice-board located within the ministry's headquarters. The ministry, which is run by the Slovak National Party (SNS), subsequently signed an agreement with the winning bidder - a consortium that included two companies called Zamedia and Avocat - and paid out part of the money for the services. It came to light later that both Zamedia and Avocat are close to SNS chairman Jan Slota and that the consortium's bid was extremely expensive.
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