Prague, Feb 23 (CTK) – The Czech Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of Czech parliament, has exempted state-run firms from the duty to release their contracts in the central online register on the proposal of its economic committee, according to information on the lower house’s website.
Junior government Christian Democrat (KDU-CSL) deputy chairman Jan Bartosek pushed through that the firms with a majority stake of the state, regions or municipalities be also exempted from the duty.
The Chamber of Deputies passed the respective amendment to the law on contracts register on Wednesday. It was supported by 80 out of the 159 MPs present, mainly from the senior government Social Democrats (CSSD) and the opposition Communists (KSCM).
The economic committee debated the draft amendment submitted by KDU-CSL MPs, which originally proposed that only the Budejovicky Budvar state-owned brewery need not release contracts in the central register, last March.
The committee proposed that the exemption apply to all state-run companies eventually.
The law on contract register has applied to state, regional and municipal companies and other organisations since last July. The state-controlled CEZ power utility was exempted from the duty then.
Under the legislation, all contracts worth more than 50,000 crowns must be released in the register.
So far there have been no sanctions embedded in the law for the violation of this duty. However, a new rule that all contracts not released in the register will be invalid is to be introduced in July.
($1=25.700 crowns)
