Corruption in Prague

At the end of February, the Prague Mayor Jan Kasl apologised to the businessmen from the American Chamber of Commerce, who complained with him about corruption of the people around the municipal office. The municipal councillors from the parties to the opposition agreement have attacked him angrily.

„I believe that we will soon be informed about a specific case of corruption or an apology will be made public,“ Zdeněk Kovářík (ODS) summarised their opinion. Conversely, the coalition councillors bore Kasl out in this: In their opinion, corruption is abundant at the municipal office but it is difficult to prove. „Neither of the actual participants will, of course, report his deed because they are both offenders and neither of them is an injured party. The injured party is the one who does not know about their transaction,“ says the councillor Jiří Witzany (US). Thus, „merely“ strange circumstances of selection procedures, changes in the territorial plan or apartment management hint at the fact that something is not in order. And it must be said that the councillors really cannot complain about lack of signals in this respect.

Punished Křeslice

Six years ago, construction of new sewerage was started in a small village on the periphery of Prague. The winner of the tender was Stamet, a company based in Prague. „We were not satisfied with its work,“ says Antonín Zápotocký, the mayor of Křeslice. The pipes cracked and are not tight; the path above them is sinking and there was a horrible mess around the construction site. In addition to the opinions from two audit companies, the mayor documents his statements with photographs taken by himself: concrete slabs across a park; a lawn rutted by the tires of heavy vehicles; an uprooted tree. Up to this point, this is nothing more than a story about one sloppy company. However, at the end of the last year, the Municipal Investor Department organised a tender for a company, which will construct sidewalks and a road in Křeslice. One of the six contacted companies was Stamet. „It surprised us that this company had again been contacted,“ wrote the councillors of Křeslice to the members of the selection commission. „Before you make any decision, we would like to inform you about our bad experience with this company and thus supplement the references on this company.“ In spite of their opinion, Stamet was again the winner of the tender.

The mayor of Křeslice was one of the members of the commission; however, the officials of the municipal office constituted the majority. „I argued with them in vain,“ recalls Antonín Zápotocký. „At the first sight, the tender was completely objective. Stamet was the cheapest one and offered the soonest deadline. But everything was suspiciously just a little bit better.“ At that moment, the mayor decided not to let it be just like that. He set out to work with his friend, a technician, and they made an approximate calculation of how much the construction should cost. They arrived at a price that was lower by several millions than the amounts offered by the contacted companies (the quotations ranged from 29 to 31 million; the result of the mayor's calculation was 22 million Czech Crowns). He agreed with the councillors about his intention; he bought the same documentation, which was used by the Municipal Investor Department, from the designer for ten thousand Czech Crowns and contacted five other companies. „When we opened their envelopes, we were astounded,“ recalls the mayor. The prices were lower by one third and the implementation periods were shorter by one half than in the tender organised by the Municipal Investor Department. The mayor did not keep the shocking result to himself. He distributed it among all councillors and the Prague Council held a meeting over it and cancelled the tender. However, the mayor did not receive any praise. On the contrary, at the same meeting, the councillors took away ten million Czech Crowns from Křeslice, previously earmarked for new sidewalks, and sent them to Chabry. „I asked the councillors: Is this to be a punishment? After all, we came with a suggestion on how millions from public funds can be saved,“ complains the mayor.

Making a Fool of the Municipal Office

„The mayor did a good job,“ says appreciatively Martin Bursík, a councillor for KDU-ČSL, about the contribution of Křeslice to the process of unravelling corruption. In his opinion, there are only two explanations for the difference in the prices. „Either the employees of the Municipal Investor Department are absolutely incompetent or there is really bribery and corruption behind it.“ It is possible that the officials keep placing public procurement orders with the same several companies on a rotating basis all the time and there is a mutual agreement between these companies and the officials. The companies offer a higher price and a bribe at the same time. „This is absolutely out of the question,“ says angrily Jozef Macko, the director of the Municipal Investor Department. How does he then explain the different price levels in the said selection procedures? „I do not believe this, the tender conditions were certainly not the same,“ claims the director. There is nothing easier than verifying that they were the same. „I do not have time for that,“ insists Jozef Macko. Not even the responsible councillor Petr Švec (ODS) will investigate why the prices offered to the municipal office were higher by one third. He has his theory: „The mayor misused the information from the first selection procedure. He called the companies and told them how much they should offer.“ Why would he do something like that? „He wanted to make a fool of the municipal office,“ claims councillor Švec. This is why the Inspection Department will not inquire into the high prices but into the steps taken by mayor Zápotocký. „I find his actions disrespectable. It is up to the Inspection Department to draw the necessary conclusions,“ adds Švec.

The case of Křeslice also drew attention to yet another thing, namely the absolute lack of public control over selection procedures. For an order involving an amount of up to 20 million Czech Crowns (and such orders represent the majority), the investor can only contact several selected companies and does not have to organise a public tender. The law requires making the tender public on the Internet at a website referred to as the „central address“ but the Municipal Investor Department was not doing so. „I haven't noticed that the amendment to the Act contains such a crucial section about a central address,“ says ironically the director Macko. „Moreover, the section does not state "must make public“ but only „will make public“. In spite of that, I have already issued an instruction that we will be making it public."

A simple list containing selection procedures organised over the last year, the members of commissions, the contacted companies and the winners could also hint at something. „I cannot say now to someone - stop working and print out a hundred sheets of paper,“ the director Macko wards off a request for the above-mentioned information. „However, according to the Free Access to Information Act, we are obliged to give you this information. Apply for it and we will prepare it for you.“ The councillor Jiří Witzany has similar experience. „I asked for this information several times. I never received it; they always somehow forgot about it. It is also my mistake that I did not insist on it.“

Blue for Tesco All councillors are personally experiencing another case accompanied by suspicious circumstances. The Tesco company bought cheap arable land on the outskirts of the city. All that was needed to transform it into an enormously lucrative building plot was to modify the territorial plan so that the Tesco's plots of land changed from arable land into a site for a hypermarket. The Prague councillors first voted on this three years ago and the majority of them raised their hands against such a change. A little less than a year later, Zdeněk Kovářík (ODS), the councillor for land development, came with a motion to enable Tesco to carry out construction, after all. And his motion was carried. „Nothing at all has changed over that year. I would like to know what took place between Tesco and the councillors during that time so that they changed their minds like that,“ says Petr Štěpánek from the citizens' association Revival, which inquires into corruption at the Prague municipal office, among other things. And we are back at the same thing, the public can only guess. „There were a number of meetings. We tried to oblige the councillors and we are expecting the result,“ says briefly Martina Čermáková, the spokesperson of Tesco. The power of the officials is great. „You have an almost worthless field and all that is needed is to change its colour from green to blue in the plan to multiply its price. It only depends on which coloured pencil an official takes into his hand,“ says councillor Martin Stránský (US). The Prague councillors decided to change the colour. The gigantic shopping centre in Šeberov is only a short distance from a similar centre, which is being built by Intershop in Chodov. Therefore, had the councillors thought of their electors, they would not probably have raised their hands for such a change. However, Martin Stránský bore something else in mind: „I would also like to be the owner of the only restaurant in the street. I voted for a change in the territorial plan because I do not have the right to exclude one company from competition.“

Nevertheless, according to backstage rumours at the Prague Town Hall, Tesco distributed twenty million Czech Crowns among the councillors before the voting but the overwhelming majority of councillors „only heard something“. Only some of them are more talkative. „I have experienced a hint that such a way would be possible. I probably started to oppose this so quickly that we did not get too far,“ says Jiří Witzany. Martin Bursík, the ex-Minister for the Environment, also speaks about a contact without any problems. „One man from Tesco really called me before the meeting. I refused to meet him, stating that my aversion to hypermarkets is well-known.“ Mrs. Čermáková, the spokesperson, refuses the accusation of the councillors of corruption: „Tesco would never do something like that.“ But why did it buy arable land and not building plots? „I am not authorised to answer that question,“ says the spokesperson.

However, the change in the territorial plan made by the councillors did not get through because the Ministry for Regional Development got in the way of the shopping centre. „We cannot interfere in this by deciding on what will be where,“ says Petr Kokoška, the competent deputy to the Minister. „We only make a statement on whether the procedure took place in accordance with the law.“ For the time being, the deputy Kokoška does not want to describe all that which did not seem all right to his Ministry. All the same, he discloses one reservation: „The transport connection to the highway has not been solved. If we now let one hundred and eighty thousand cars per day go there, it will cause a traffic collapse.“ But the disapproving opinion of the Ministry does not prey on the mind of the councillor Kovářík. „We will present a change in the territorial plan to the council most likely in April or May,“ he says. „It was already voiced at a meeting of the council that we could stand up and vote contrary to the negative opinion of the Ministry,“ says Jiří Witzany. However, the deputy Kokoška points out that this would be a gross violation of law. And what benefit will the Prague inhabitants have from having two shopping centres next to each other? „I will tell you my opinion when the voting is over,“ Kovářík, the councillor for territorial planning, refused a debate on this topic.