Prague, Feb 27 (CTK) – Ondrej Palenik, former head of the Czech Administration of State Material Reserves (SSHR), and another high-ranking SSHR manager have been charged over a supplement to the contract for the lease of a storage reservoir in Nelahozeves, central Bohemia, CTK learnt from the SSHR yesterday.
State attorney Tomas Minx said on the web page that both of them face up to 12 years in prison for abuse of power and breach of trust.
Minx said they “wastefully handled the property of the Czech Republic.”
Charges were brought against them in early February. Palenik, who headed the SSHR from November 2012 until February 2014, dismisses any wrongdoing, public Czech Television (CT) said yesterday.
Before Palenik was appointed to the head of the SSHR, he was director of the Military Intelligence (VZ), which the police say had the wife of former prime minister Petr Necas illegally shadowed.
He, two other VZ agents and Jana Necasova, formerly Nagyova, who led former prime minister Petr Necas’s office, have been charged in this connection.
Palenik’s successor at the head of the SSHR, Pavel Svagr, says the latest case is connected with Viktoriagruppe, whose insolvency blocked millions of litres of Czech oil stored in the firm’s tanks in Germany.
Svagr says the firm pledged some time ago to pay the costs of the lease of the Nelahozeves storage reservoir to the state firm Mero CR, which operates oil pipelines.
However, in 2013, a supplement stripping the firm of the duty, was signed. Since then, the SSHR has paid the lease of the empty reservoir, or four million crowns monthly.
Svagr said he would never sign such a supplement to the contract, “maybe with the exception if oil were again immediately stored in the empty reservoir.”
SSHR spokesman Jakub Linka said the SSHR filed a legal complaint about an unknown perpetrator in connection with Viktoriagruppe in the Czech Republic in October 2014 and in Germany in December 2015.
The insolvency of Viktoriagruppe blocked millions of litres of Czech oil worth 1.2 billion crowns in Krailling, Germany. An agreement on its return was reached and the oil is being gradually returned to the Czech Republic.
“Since I entered the SSHR, I have been dealing with skeletons in the cupboard,” Svagr said in February 2015.
Svagr also had to deal with a lawsuit with Lukoil Aviation Czech. Its executive secretary was Martin Nejedly, President Milos Zeman’s adviser.
A court ordered the firm last April to pay a contractual fine of 27.7 million crowns plus interests to the state. The sanction arose from a contract for the change of the reserves of aviation fuel.
Svagr said contracts on storing strategically important foods with firms from the Agrofert group were disadvantageous for the state and a contract for the storing of tens of tonnes of butter, signed without a tender, was also bad.
The SSHR is responsible for the reserves of various commodities for possible crises, such as floods, war conflicts or stoppage of the supplies of crucial raw materials.
It keeps oil, aviation fuel, foods and medicines in its own or hired stores.
The emergency reserves of oil cover the whole state’s consumption for more than 90 days. There must be enough grain for one month and the required reserves of food should make up for three-day consumption. The reserves of industrial raw materials, such as nonferrous metals, are usually for three months. The suppliers are obliged to regularly change the reserves to keep them fresh.
($1=25.468 crowns)
