The Hayek affair concerning accusations of crony practices of state secretary for the Ministry of Economy, Martin Chren, and former state secretary for the Ministry of Transport, Ivan Svejna, has been put to rest by the Supreme Audit Office (NKU).
Both the state secretaries at the time defended their innocence, but Svejna stepped down from his post anyway. They both had shares in the Hayek company that won a large contract 3 years before they took up office. It also won another order from NADSME, but Chren and Svejna cancelled it in time after discovering the conflict of interests.
The NKU spent two months looking into the case and has now issued a verdict that the EUR 2 million spent through the contracts was okay and according to the contract terms. It states that the Hayek Consulting company had fulfilled the larger contract, but that because of terms, the contracting authorities had lost out on thousands of euro.
Now it is up to Prime Minister Iveta Radicova to examine the findings and see whether there was a conflict of interests, and if so, to decide on how to proceed next.