ERÚ head to file criminal complaint against ERÚ department

Energy Regulatory Office (ERU) chairwoman Alena Vitaskova wants to file a criminal complaint against the ERU's administrative department because it allegedly paid insufficient attention to results of controls on the energy market in the past, online daily Denik Insider has said.

Vitaskova earlier filed two complaints at the police already over the ERU's steps.

"We found out that around 140 reports on conclusions of controls were left unattended at the administrative department," Vitaskova said.

The reports were not attended to, although in many cases administrative proceedings should have been launched, she said.

The ERU has been analysing the errors of its administrative department for several months already. It is evaluating the impacts of employees' inaction from the point of view of criminal law.

The server said energy consumers, whose rights the ERU is to protect in line with the law, might have been harmed.

Vitaskova last year replaced the head of the ERU's administrative department as well as the head of the section overseeing the department owing to errors made by ERU employees. The entire group of the employees had failed as professionals, according to Vitaskova, Insider said.

The ERU became the centre of attention for the media as well as for politicians in 2010 when the Czech Republic was hit by the so-called solar boom. The total installed output of photovoltaic power plants in the country grew four times to 1,953 MW in the single year.

An audits at the ERU revealed that its former employees had probably acted unlawfully when setting purchasing prices of electricity produced by solar power plants. The damage caused by their behaviour could reach tens of billions of crowns.