Head of the opposition Robert Fico is flapping his wings of discontent again over the dubious public procurement for rental of premises for the Tax Authority.
At one of his increasingly frequent press conferences, yesterday Fico called on Prime Minister Iveta Radicova to sack finance minister Ivan Miklos over the affair, saying that was the only way she could renew her self-respect. He then informed that if she did not do it he would petition for a no-confidence motion in the PM.
Fico’s main reasoning lies in the close ties between the company Nitra Invest, which has been awarded the contract in two tenders already, and finance minister Ivan Miklos, because the company is owned by SDKU party regional head Ondrej Scurka, who is on friendly relations with Miklos.
Following the first accusations, Miklos strongly defended the whole process and went against PM Radicova over the sacking of Tax Authority head Miroslav Mikulcik because of the affair. The conflict threatened the whole government, while Mikulcik eventually stepped down of his own accord.
Fico called Miklos’s arrogance unprecedented, accusing him of mockery when claiming the tender was “the most transparent to date”, something that Transparency International Slovensko itself conceded, though, while recommending a different outcome.
If Radicova doesn’t recall Miklos, Fico plans to rally his party into a no-confidence motion in the PM probably in September. Fico already threatened the no-confidence motion over the tax office affair back in April.