Prague, July 4 (CTK) – The explosions of Vrbetice ammunition dumps in 2014 again showed that some Czech firms trading in arms are controlled by people hidden behind stooges, and the state must take more resolute action to prevent it, daily Pravo writes Saturday, referring to the National Security Office (NBU).
This poses a huge security risk, the paper writes.
Unless the legislation is quickly changed, even terrorists might get control over a Czech arms-trading company, NBU director Dusan Navratil said.
All people who have strong influence on an arms-trading firm would have to pass a security vetting needed for the arms-trading licence, the NBU has proposed.
Since 2002, heads of the firms and their supervisory boards must undergo the vetting.
Navratil said some arms-trading firms had formal executive directors who occupied the posts only because they received the required vetting in the past. But a partner in the firm who may be its sole owner does not need any vetting under the present law, he said.
“The last straw were the Vrbetice blasts where we came across another such case,” Navratil said without elaborating.
The police have been investigating two big explosions, which occurred in the Vrbetice ammo dump last year and killed two people, as intentional endangering of public safety. The government started focusing on the security standards of ammunition dumps in the country since then.
NBU wants every firm trading in arms to tell the authorities the names of all who have strong influence on the firm. All these persons will need a security vetting. If a firm provided untrue information, it would not get a licence or be stripped of it.
But the Czech Association of Defence and Security Industry and the Parliamentary Institute, which analyses legislation in the international context, are against the NBU proposal, Pravo writes.
The Association’s head Jiri Hynek said big international firms would leave the Czech Republic due to the new law or initiate arbitration proceedings.
Hynek said owners of big concerns like Thales, Lockheed Martin or Honeywell would stop their production in the country.
Navratil dismissed this view.
He said every such firm had a branch in the country with mostly Czech directors who have the vetting. The foreign owners and share-holders do not act on behalf of the Czech branches, he said.
