“The Court of Audit would like to see a systemic regulation of jurisdiction over subsidiary firms under state-owned companies, and does not intend to audit individual investments,” argues Tomaž Vesel, the court’s president.
Vesel pointed out that the Court of Audit had been explicitly demanding the option and jurisdiction to audit the companies indirectly owned by the state, such as subsidiary companies and sub-subsidiary firms, for a decade now. He denied the allegations expressed in a letter written by the Commission for the Prevention of Corruption (KPK). The latter reported it “encountered a negative response” when appealing to the Court of Audit to audit the TEŠ 6 project, the country’s biggest energy investment project.
Systemic rather than ad hoc
Vesel warned the participants of the meeting with the prime minister on 28 August that “this matter should be solved systemically, and not ad hoc for one investment project, since retroactive validity of such regulation would be problematic – we’ve discussed that, too, but nothing has changed”, said Vesel, adding that “we may now have an opportunity to do this through amending the law on the Slovenian Sovereign Holding (SDH), so that the jurisdiction is granted to the Court of Audit”.
Explanation …
He explained that the court could not perform a thorough audit of TEŠ in the requested range, since “TEŠ on his own is in charge of the investment project as a subsidiary company, whereas its state-owned parent company, the HSE Group, as well as the government only serve as guarantors for the payments”. “The court can only participate in the audit of this segment, which I explicitly pointed out to the participants of the meeting. I firmly deny the allegations, and I do not consider this to be a valid reason for anyone’s resignation,” argues Vesel.
Court of Audit would be inefficient
The president added that a special group had been founded within the police forces to investigate alleged criminal offences related to TEŠ 6, and that the State Prosecutor’s Office as well as European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) had been dealing with the case, too.
Government likely to discuss SDH on Thursday
Although Vesel is opposed to ad hoc solutions, the Court of Audit sent suggestions for amendments to the law on SDH. The proposals include granting jurisdiction to the Court of Audit for auditing SDH’s subsidiary companies, shows the government’s agenda for Thursday’s regular session.
NPU’s commission investigating systemic corruption
Stanislav Veniger, Director General of the Slovenian Police, noted that in addition to the signed agreement of cooperation with the Court of Audit, the National Investigation Bureau (NPU) had formed a special group that deals with systemic corruption in August. The group is led by Robert Slodej and is currently investigating systemic corruption in the health care system. Veniger pointed out that the reason for inefficient persecution of systemic corruption often lies in complicated legislature, which is being passed with various lobbies and interests in the background, and that the politicians only listen to the experts when the latter have the “right arguments”, as occurred with the banking law.
Inspectorate for public orders? This brings additional cost!
Vesel does not support KPK’s proposal on founding an inspectorate for public orders. “The inspectorate is one of the possibilities. The fact is that several institutions are already in charge of supervising public orders, and that is why the proposal for an inspectorate needs to be weighted up a bit further. After all, this brings additional cost,” said Vesel, adding that public orders are a “neuralgic issue” in other European countries, too.
Vesel also pointed out that almost 90 per cent of orders take place through public orders and are therefore in the realm of the public sector. “Due to the fact that the market is small and that the level of competition is low, public orders are becoming problematic,” warns Vesel.