MfD: EU funds used for promotion by Education Ministry

Prague, Feb 7 (CTK) - The Czech Education Ministry wanted to buy sweets to promote the VIP project developing consultancy services at schools and covering the pay of psychologists and specialist teachers for EU money, Mlada fronta Dnes (MfD) writes yesterday adding the ministry told it the plan has been abolished.

MfD writes that the tender for the VIP project promotion was to be split into two parts: "publicity" for 967,000 crowns and "promotion items" for 1.1 million crowns.

The ministry also wanted to buy promotional cups and key tags.

Shadow education minister Marcel Chladek (Social Democrats, CSSD) told MfD that the splitting of the order into two parts with costs below two million crowns may have been an attempt to circumvent law.

Tenders must be launched for procurements for more than two million crowns.

The new head of the project, child psychologist Vaclav Mertin, allegedly did not know about the money for chocolate and he immediately abolished it when alerted to it.

"There is a lot of mistakes in the project. I would like to rectify them in March. I do not want any chocolate or promotional items. I know from practice that they are unnecessary," Mertin told MfD.

The European Commission (EC) has criticised the management of Czech projects and drawing of subsidies from the Education for Competitiveness Operational Programme.

The EC's auditors found mistakes in public procurement and the commission has suspended the payment of 1.2 billion crowns in subsidies. The ministry faces the threat of the whole project from which the country could gain up to 53 billion crowns being stopped.

Education Minister Josef Dobes (Public Affairs, VV) said at a press conference on Monday that he knows nothing about the threat of the subsidies being stopped.

Czech ambassador to the EU Milena Vicenova said, however, she sent the letter with the threat of a possible termination of the programme to Prague.

Dobes promised to take effective measures to deal with the EC's objections and inform the EC of this by March 31.

He repeated he will resign unless the problems with drawing EU money are solved.

($1=19.152 crowns)