Clerk files complaint over misuse of EU funds in northwest region

Prague, July 10 (CTK) - Former civil servant Leo Steiner (Christian Democrats, KDU-CSL), who was working at the North-West Regional Operational Programme (ROP) office distributing EU subsidies, filed a criminal complaint against the office's political management yesterday, he has told reporters.

Steiner criticises the way of allocating finances in the North West region, covering the Karlovarsky, west Bohemia, and Ustecky, north Bohemia, regions.

He claims that the office's management agreed on the division of subsidies between both regions beforehand - 35 percent should go to the Karlovarsky and 65 percent to the Ustecky region. He also says the decisions on the projects were made before the deadline for filing applications for subsidies was even announced.

Steiner told reporters yesterday that the criminal complaint was filed against the committee of the Regional Council, which is a political board of the office for distributing EU subsidies in the regions.

The Northwest ROP is to distribute a total of 19 billion crowns of the EU money. Contracts for projects worth 16 billion have already been signed.

The drawing of EU finances was halted this year after several cases of suspected abuse of EU funds connected with the regional offices surfaced.

Steiner warned that the regions may have to return hundreds of millions of crowns they had drawn.

He also confirmed at the press conference that he would not run in the autumn regional and Senate elections.

On Sunday, a district court remanded in custody two of the four people who were accused of the drawing of EU finances in the Northwest region fraudulently.

Another two accused will be prosecuted without being taken into custody.

On Tuesday last week, the Czech police detained three people connected with the North-West ROP office - former ROP head Petr Kusnierz, its land section head Irena Kotlanova and its legal section head Jan Martinovsky.

A representative of the Cascade hotel in Most, north Bohemia, was arrested along with them.

Kusnierz was in custody until March when he was released, and he is waiting for a court verdict to be issued later in July.

According to the charges, Kusnierz and three friends of his demanded bribes of 2.8 million crowns in total in exchange for a smooth settlement of applications for subsidies.

Steiner has formulated the complaint against the ROP office with the help of the Transparency International corruption watchdog. It has recommended that no regional operational programmes be set up for the next budget period.

($1=20.769 crowns)