Some harsh words have been swapped this week between parliamentary chairman Richard Sulik of the SaS party and head of the opposition Smer-SD party, Robert Fico, following Sulik’s motion to strip Fico of his vice-chair post in parliament. Now they are going at each other’s throats.
Fico dug up an old payment from 2006 that Sulik had received from state-owned waste company OLO as a kind of severance bonus, with Fico likening it to the recently disclosed huge severance payoffs received by the heads of heating companies.
Sulik assured that everything was above board and that it was a much smaller amount for a much longer term of service (EUR 16,600 bonus for two years). Today Sulik retorted that Fico was incapable of comprehending how somebody could receive a bonus for actually doing a good job, because Fico had never had a real job in his life.
Sullik said the money was in fact a bonus for having turned the company’s economics around over the space of two years, but Fico is also questioning the way the payment was made.