Prague, May 16 (CTK) – The trade unions of the Czech Financial Administration (FS) have sent an open letter, dated Monday, May 15, to Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka (Social Democrats, CSSD) asking him that the government cease doubting the FS’s independence from political pressures.
They say the FS is an independent and erudite body of the public administration, not “a power weapon in the hands of the Finance Ministry.”
They reject the label of a “repressive body.”
The trade unions also comment on cases of abuse of one-crown bonds. They wrote the FS dealt with the issue continuously in the past periods as well.
“At present, the Financial Administration pays great attention to the one-crown bonds and they are its priority,” the letter says.
The trade unions also dissociate themselves from liquidating business entities through ‘freezing orders.’
“We are convinced that the Financial Administration only applies freezing orders in justified cases and that it applies them most prudently,” the unions wrote.
The letter was signed by 12 people from the FS section committee which falls under the Trade Union of State Bodies and Organisations (OSSOO).
“We are also deeply offended by the comparison of the steps taken by the Financial Administration to the practices of Gestapo or the [communist] collectivisation in the 1950s,” the letter says.
The purchase of untaxed one-crown bonds is one the problems of Finance Minister Andrej Babis’s (ANO) business activities and property situation, which have triggered the current government crisis.
Sobotka sent a proposal to President Milos Zeman to dismiss Babis in early May, but Zeman only wants to deal with the situation after his return form a visit to China on Thursday.
In the meantime, ANO has proposed Babis’s deputy Alena Schillerova as his replacement. However, Sobotka said Schillerova is responsible for the slow practice in controlling the firms that issued the one-crown bonds.
Deputy Prime Minister Pavel Belobradek (Christian Democrats, KDU-CSL) recommended on Tuesday that the Chamber of Deputies control committee deal with the FS’s handling the one-crown bonds.
He said the involvement of the Supreme Audit Office should also be considered.
