State-owned company MH Invest is being investigated by the police due to several affairs of suspected abuse of public funds and cronyism.
The Anti-corruption Unit of the police has started investigating the economic situations of the two executives of MH Invest under the former government, Stanislav Grobar and Robert Novotny. They were nominated by former ruling coalition parties SNS and SMer, respectively.
The investigator from the Anti-corruption Unit requested documents and information from the current head of the company, Eduard Pekarovic, who gave his full collaboration but who knows nothing about the actual investigation.
Daily SME drew attention to some of the suspicious practices in MH Invest at the end of September last year. These included overpriced services for archaeological surveys at the industrial estate in Trencin, for instance, for which it paid private company Nona just under EUR 30,000, based on a contract signed just 10 days before the general elections.
The company Nona won the tender with ease and then ordered the work from the State Heritage Office for just EUR 3,700. The company also won similar ‘tenders’ for industrial parks for Samsung and Hansol, where MH Invest paid Nona some EUR 5.8 million, which then ordered the work from Comenius University for around a mere EUR 18,000.
MH Invest was also paying out EUR 50,000 a month for economic services, whereas most other state companies do their own accounts or at much lower cost. It also rented out premises in hotels, kept up two flats, and leased cars for a year at the cost of buying a new car, not to mention buying furniture worth EUR 60,000 for five small office.
As is often the case, though, those running the company worked within the confines of the law and so will probably not be held accountable for clear abuse of taxpayers money. “We proceeded in line with the law and called a public tender” says one of the investigated executives, Stanislav Grobár. Former economy minister Lubomir Jahnatek, whose department was responsible for the company, also claims no responsibility for, or knowledge of, the case.