Economy Minister Lubomir Jahnatek is planning to change the law on the Supreme Audit Office's in relation to its right to conduct control activities because of the privatization of Slovakia's dominant power producer SE. A ministry's analysis shows that the Slovak government does not own the entire 34 percent in SE, and the National Audit Office thus cannot carry out audits in the company. The analysis reveals that the government sold one share more to the Italian investor Enel. The Economy Ministry now blames the SE sale on the former government of Mikulas Dzurinda, under which the majority stake in SE was sold to the Italian company Enel.
"This was not the mistake of SE. It was negligence or intention of the Slovak government that turned out like this," said Mr. Jahnatek. According to him, all who were involved in the SE sale under the Dzurinda government knew well that they were selling more than a 66-percent stake to Enel and that the Supreme Audit Office would in this way lose any possibility of controlling SE. "I have already submitted the material to the prime minister and I am now awaiting his stance. My personal opinion is that the people who sold the power company proceeded intentionally the way that they did. Therefore, I think that if we had had tougher laws they could have come under criminal prosecution," he said.
The government of Mikulas Dzurinda sold a 66-percent stake in SE via the Economy Ministry, led by Pavol Rusko at the time. The tender winner was the Italian company Enel, which bought the stake for EUR 840 million in 2006. In April 2006 Enel definitively entered SE as its majority owner. The minority shareholder is the government privatization agency the FNM; however, the Economy Ministry executes ownership rights in the company.
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