Prague, May 23 (CTK) – The ANO movement has not accepted the donation worth 1.1 million crowns from businessman David Rusnak, who was remanded in custody today within suspected leaks of information from Czech police files, ANO leader Andrej Babis told the website of the public broadcaster Czech Radio (CRo).
He said the donation agreement was found unsigned in Brno, which means that ANO did not accept any such donation.
The parliamentary controlling committee wants to deal with ANO’s funding because Rusnak’s donation is not included in the movement’s financial report for 2014.
The right-wing opposition Civic Democrats (ODS) called on the committee to check financing of ANO and said the party could have had unofficial funds.
The committee’s chairman Vladimir Konicek (opposition Communists, KSCM) said the committee would deal with the issue and check whether Rusnak mentioned the donation in his tax return. He said the new office supervising the financing of political parties should focus on the case.
“I did not sign it,” Babis said about the donation agreement, adding that only the ANO chairman could have signed a contract for such a big donation. As a result, the donation is included neither in the accounting nor in the annual financial report, he said.
But ANO writes on its website that it is the head of an ANO district branch who can sign donation agreements.
Babis said the ANO branch in Brno was to blame for the mess. “I have ordered a check of this affair,” he said.
He admitted that it is still unclear whether the ANO branch in Brno used the donation or not.
Jiri Hrabovsky, spokesman for Rusnak’s DRFG investment group, told CRo that DRFG met its part of the donation agreement and provided stationery items to the party.
Rusnak is one of 18 suspects in a case of information leaks from police databases. He was ANO’s sponsor and its member. However, he said three days ago that he gave up his membership.
Rusnak is the son-in-law of Deputy Finance Minister Alena Schillerova whom ANO recently proposed as an replacement for the outgoing Finance Minister Babis. Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka (Social Democrats, CSSD) demands that the billionaire Babis leave the government due to his unclear property situation, suspected tax evasion and influencing of the media he owned. President Milos Zeman is to replace Babis with ANO MP Ivan Pilny on Wednesday.
($1=23.557 crowns)
