Mayor of Ljubljana Zoran Janković has already responded to all three sets of charges, which are the focus of the investigation. In a statement given in front of the Ljubljana city hall, the mayor assured that he never demanded bribes. “I was accused of receiving bribes by a convicted prisoner – I’ll file criminal charges against him. There were no bribes,” claimed Janković, calling upon the police to present evidence of bribing.
The second group of charges is related to a call made to the CEO of Ljubljana’s public enterprise Vodovod-Kanalizacija (VO-KA) after having been paid a visit by a representative of KPL. The mayor allegedly instructed VO-KA to change the tendering procedure for a project of communal infrastructure at Rakova Jelša, a southern Ljubljana district. Janković explained that KPL’s representative had claimed the tender targeted Hidrotehnik, another building constructer. The mayor thus called VO-KA’s CEO, and asked him to remove the most rigorous conditions from the tender.
Janković: Everything was in accordance with the law
After the tender was published, four offers were received, with three matching the conditions of the tender. All three companies were also invited for negotiations in the city hall. “KPL did not get the project, Hidrotehnik did. Its price was by 41 per cent lower from the initial offer,” emphasized Janković. In his words, this proves there were no irregularities, and that the project went to the best tenderer.
The third set of charges suspects Janković of having intervened for a female pharmacist to get employed by the Ljubljana Pharmacy in exchange for sexual favours. “I never demanded any sexual favours, this person had been employed there for a year before this supposedly happened,” argued the mayor, refusing to reply to questions from the press. Instead, Janković assured that all allegations were false and that this would be proven during the investigation. According to the mayor, everything was done in accordance with the law, which is why he has no intention of resigning.
