Five to be charged in Opencard case

Prague, Aug 9 (CTK) - The anti-corruption police have proposed that charges be brought against former head of the IT department at the Prague City Hall and another four officials over the Opencard project, spokeswoman for the anti-corruption police Pavla Kopecka said at a website yesterday.

According to the detectives the persons who were responsible for the right course of the public procurement concluded contracts that were disadvantageous for Prague, causing the damage of roughly 70 million crowns, Kopecka said.

Stepanka Zenklova, spokeswoman for the Prague state attorney's office, has confirmed that it has received the police proposal.

Now the office will decide on whether to send the five Prague City Hall officials to court.

The detectives have accused the five persons of breach of binding rules of economic contact and breach of trust in property administration.

If convicted, they may be sentenced up to eight years in prison.

Head of anti-corruption police Tomas Martinec said in early August that when Pavel Bem (Civic Democratic Party, ODS) was the Prague mayor, vital documents on the case had been shredded.

Opencard, launched by the City Hall five years ago, is a chip card to facilitate Praguers' payments for public services, mainly transport. The project was openly challenged and attracted media attention in late 2009.

According to its critics, the project was heavily overpriced, with the firm Haguess that received about 320 million crowns being its biggest beneficiary. The whole project cost over 800 million crowns.

The detectives are reportedly also investigating another five former officials of the Prague City Hall.

($1=20.406 crowns)