HN: Corrupted politicians should be systematically removed

Prague, Feb 2 (CTK) - People siphoning off public money will always be there, but "we must insist on the consistent elimination of politicians who get entangled with them," Jiri Leschtina writes in daily Hospodarske noviny (HN) yesterday.

He writes that Prime Minister Petr Necas (Civic Democrats, ODS) claimed last September when Martin Roman "was falling up" from the post of CEZ energy company chief to the head of the CEZ supervisory board, that he has no evidence of Roman's conflict of interest in dealing with the Skoda Plzen heavy engineering company.

However, information in the files of Swiss investigators has shown recently that Roman's name figures in the bank accounts of foreign firms connected with Skoda also after he left the post of CEZ head, Leschtina writes.He asks how long Necas will continue to still hesitate about dismissing Roman.

It is very probable that Roman was one of the heads of the appalling system within which firms with the state's stake like CEZ, Czech Rail (CD) or the Prague Transport Company, were signing overpriced contracts with Skoda Plzen that its managers privatised behind the back of the sate, Leschtina writes.

He says millions of crowns from these deals were returning back to the hands of managers hired by the government with the help of lawyers founding "continuous-flow" firms in tax havens.

The emergence of the outlines of this monster raises the perversity of its coexistence with top politicians, Leschtina writes.

Under the previous right-wing government of Mirek Topolanek (ODS) it "fornicated" right with the prime minister under the Tuscany sun, Leschtina writes.

Under Necas it played golf in Dubai "merely" with the head (Pavel Suchanek, ODS) of the Chamber of Deputies budget committee, which is the most important post in the lower house of parliament comparable with the post of minister, Leschtina writes.

The worst thing is that a group of state attorneys headed by Vlastimil Rampula was assiduously sweeping away the traces left behind by the corruption monster, Leschtina writes.

At a time the Finance Ministry was also trying to cover up evidence when it refused to join the criminal proceedings over the privatisation of the Mostecka uhelna spolecnost (MUS) Czech mining company launched in Switzerland, Leschtina writes.

Yet, this investigation exposed the tangle of relations between Roman and Skoda, he writes.

The exposure of the system used to keep secret the owners of firms via Cyprus and the Virgin Islands dashes the illusions about the omnipotence of the ban on anonymous shares that has long been prepared, but not yet passed, Leschtina writes.

Cunning lawyers will always find a way to secure fraudsters' anonymity, Leschtina writes.

Elsewhere in HN Adam Cerny writes that the impression made by politicians' statements about the emerging business ties of Martin Roman is devastating.

Those who held positions in which they should have known, did not know, did not hear. Or to put it otherwise - they relied on the audit that the biggest state-held company, CEZ, made on itself, Cerny writes.

This applies to Finance Minister Miroslav Kalousek , who is resposnible for the state stake in the energy colossus as well as Necas, HN writes elsewhere.

The opposition Social Democrats (CSSD), who are otherwise very critical of the government, have also taken a conciliatory attitude.

"When Roman was assuming the CEZ post, he told us that Skoda is not his. We could not check in any way," HN quotes CSSD chairman Bohuslav Sobotka who was finance minister in 2004 when Roman became CEZ head as saying.

He as well as Kalousek say that no one but prime ministers can have better information because they receive the secret services' reports, HN writes.

However, neither Necas, nor Jiri Paroubek (former CSSD prime minister) nor another former CSSD PM Vladimir Spidla remember any information about Roman's possible links with Skoda Plzen.

"Mr Roman clearly said he cut off any ties to Skoda Plzen before he came to CEZ," HN quotes Necas as saying.

"Ask a politician or someone who is responsible for Roman's appointment. I do not care about it," said Topolanek whose government extended Roman's managerial contract in 2008.

Doubts about the flows of billions of crowns between Skoda and CEZ are supported by the two firms' links to another recent large case - the suspicion that the proceeds from the Prague Transport Company's public procurements ended up in the accounts of non-transparent firms, HN writes.

It says the same tax haven firms and the same lawyer's offices linked to Prague lobbyists appear in both scandals.

($1=19.090 crowns)