Beware, Nikita Is Watching You

„Oh yes, I will show it to you, dear colleague, I will. I have already received consent from the other contracting parties, which means you will see the contract,“ Eduard Zeman (ČSSD), the Minister of Education, promised to Petr Mareš (US-DEU), an MP, in the television programme called „Without Immunity“. He meant the contract between his office and the general contractor for the Internet for Schools project, the consortium AutoCont OnLine / Czech Telecom, whom the Minister awarded a lucrative contract worth almost four and half billion Czech Crowns after failure of the selection procedure in November last year. Even though Mr. Minister could disprove the suspicion of corruption, which has been accompanying the whole project from the beginning, if he kept his promise, he has not yet done so. Other scandalous facts around the Internet for School project were brought by Petr Borka, an economist and a member of the Balbín's Poetic Party, last Friday. His information, the source of which Mr. Borka wants to keep anonymous, is so grave that the party has convened a press conference for this Monday.

In Whose Team You Are

The essential part of the information of Mr. Borka concerns a man called Jaromír Horák. It was this very man, whom the Ministry selected, as an Internet expert, for implementation of a project known as the Internet for Schools. Mr. Horák was to create the design of the whole project and it was he who came with a proposal that the entire huge contract should be awarded to a single general contractor. After he had put across this idea, Mr. Horák suddenly left the Ministry. But not for a long time. In June 2001, he returned to the project; however, this time on the side of the selected general contractor for the Internet for Schools, the consortium of AutoCont OnLine / Czech Telecom. „Mr. Horák had simply created advantageous conditions at the Ministry and these conditions were then only met by the consortium of the companies headed by Mr. Horák,“ Petr Borka describes the situation. „And so what? My leaving the Ministry was a fault of the Ministry. They simply did not want to renew the contract with me,“ says Mr. Horák. „Therefore I made use of the fact that I have the best knowledge of the project and I joined the team of the AutoCont OnLine consortium.“

The same somersault like Mr. Horák was done by Jakub Rainisch, an employee of AutoCont, in a reverse order some time ago: before the tender for the Internet for School had been announced, he left the company and started to work for the Ministry of Education, where he was assigned the task of preparing the selection procedure.

And just a marginal note: The public is to be persuaded about advantageousness of the scandalous Internet for School project by a company called GoodCom. One of the employees of this company and one of the spokespersons for the project is Jaromír Piskoř, who lent twenty five million Czech Crowns to ODS on an advantageous 5% interest six years ago (the normal interest rate was approximately fifteen percent at that time). However, Mr. Piskoř does not posses any remarkable wealth so this has given rise to the suspicion that ODS transfers money to black accounts through him.

You Killed My Wife

The Ministry does not want to make any comments whatsoever on this scandalous information. „I do not understand this so I will not tell you anything about it,“ says Vladimíra Al Malikiová, the spokeswoman of the Minister. „I really do not know what you are after again,“ Jiří Chvojka, the spokesman of the project, refuses „to expand on this matter“.

The word „again“ in the statement of the spokesman is logical: The Internet for Schools project has faced strong criticism and various suspicions of corruption from as early as April last year when the Minister Zeman approved the above-mentioned plan of Mr. Horák for a single general contractor. However, the fact that a single company would be given four and half billion Czech Crowns to spend without any proper control and competition aroused great indignation among the opposition Members of Parliament. The opposition wanted to give the money directly to schools, which would themselves purchase what they needed. This would prevent waste of money because the project does not take into account the fact that the extent to which the schools are equipped with computers varies: At some schools, there is a state-of-the-art technology and at some other schools, there is not a single computer. However, the government did not respond to their requests because it was able to decide on the gigantic project without examination of the Czech Parliament and the Minister Zeman was thus able to put across, without being disturbed, that the single monopoly supplier of the Internet for Schools would be the consortium AutoCont OnLine / Czech Telecom. All five competitors of AutoCont were excluded from the tender one by one because of formal shortcomings (for example, a seal affixed in some other place on the envelope than in the prescribed one and the like) until only the winner remained.

As concerns waste of money, time has borne the right-wing MPs out in this. From the available information, it follows that the state has paid unbelievable amounts to the general contractor for absolutely unnecessary operations, which could have been procured for prices several times lower. For example, the consortium of AutoCont OnLine / Czech Telecom distributed „the basic software“ among schools recently. The schools thus obtained a set of forty CDs, which was to contain the basic user programmes. However, instead of getting these programmes, the students only received language courses and encyclopaedia, which cost the state treasury almost one hundred and seventy million Czech Crowns. Why did the Ministry of Education spend tens of millions on something, which the students can find on the Internet without any problems? And why will the pupils not get the needed programmes instead of the courses? „I do not know what I should tell you about this. I do not understand it,“ Mrs. Malikiová shrugs her shoulders. A person, who would understand this matter, is no longer present in the Ministry on Friday afternoon.

„The money was simply spent in the way it was spent,“ says evasively Mr. Chvojka, the spokesman. In addition to that, it follows from the contract between the general contractor and the Ministry of Education that the state will pay almost forty six thousand Czech Crowns to the consortium for installation of each computer. „However, the computers will never be owned by the Ministry; the Ministry will only keep paying for them to the general contractor - approximately three thousand Crowns for each computer every month. It is a very lucrative deal for the consortium,“ claims the above-quoted Mr. Borka. By the way: According to computer experts, connection of one computer could be procured for fifteen thousand Crowns. Why did the Ministry agree to such a high price, disadvantageous for the state? „That is your speculation that the price could be lower. I can, for example, speculate that you killed my wife,“ says Jiří Chvojka, the spokesman of the project.

Other scandalous facts have also come to the surface. According to the available information, the general contractor recently concluded a secret amendment to the original contract with the Ministry. It follows from this amendment that the employees of the consortium AutoCont OnLine / Czech Telecom will be allowed to monitor the electronic mail of every student and will have a detailed survey of the websites accessed by the students. A crisis team called Nikita is to be formed for these purposes. In other words: This provides an ideal opportunity to spy on the users and to make commercial use of the information, for example, for advertising agencies. „Mr. Minister simply is not aware about anything like that,“ says sternly Mrs. Malikiová. It would be better to declassify the contract and to dispel all suspicions, wouldn't it? „It is true that Mr. Minister publicly promised to do so a month ago,“ says Mrs. Malikiová, „but he did not promise to do so immediately. You must wait until the elections are over. It would be a great political issue now.“