Prime Minister Robert Golob’s house of cards is collapsing – this time due to one of his early “inventions,” the personal security service he established at the beginning of his term. An extraordinary inspection proceeding revealed several violations of the law, and the penalty will now have to be paid by the Secretary-General of the government. The project in question has been problematic from the outset.
The Labour Inspectorate conducted an extraordinary inspection of Prime Minister Robert Golob‘s security service back in June. The inspector found irregularities in the organisation, recording, and use of working hours, according to the news portal MMC.
During the inspection, security guards working for Golob’s personal security service exceeded the permitted 56 hours of work per week, in several cases without the mandatory 11-hour rest period. Overtime was common, most often lasting from 4 to 6 hours. Some overtime was performed on the basis of an order, some was not. The record was set by a security guard who, in addition to his regular work, worked an additional 10 hours of overtime on one Saturday in September.
“The inspection in the area of labour relations has been completed. Due to violations of paragraph 6 of Article 148 of the Employment Relationship Act (ZDR-1), which refers to the uneven distribution of working hours, and Article 155 of the same law, which refers to the minimum number of hours of rest between two consecutive working days, administrative proceedings have been initiated. An administrative decision imposing a fine was issued against the responsible person,” the inspectorate told the news portal MMC.
Small penalty for violating the law
The penalty or fine for violating the law was imposed on the Secretary-General of the Government, Barbara Kolenko Helbl – who is also the wife of Maks Helbl, President of the Management Board of the Gen-I energy company – in the amount of four times 150 euros and a warning. The penalties were combined into a single fine of 300 euros with the option of paying half, plus 70 euros in procedural costs. The penalty has already been paid, according to reports by MMC, and the inspection procedure has been stopped.
However, Golob’s personal “praetorian guard,” as some called it when it was formed, is apparently well compensated. The number of his security guards is unknown, but there are said to be 16. Since its inception three years ago, the General Secretariat has spent 1,629,375.23 euros on their salaries, with more than one million euros paid in bonuses and almost 370,000 euros in performance-related pay. They spent 200,000 euros on reimbursement, meal pay, and compensation for transportation to
work, 40,000 euros on per diems abroad, and slightly less than 60,000 euros on per diems at home.
A problematic project from the outset
The security service has been heavily criticised since its inception. The Prime Minister initially claimed that he was establishing the new service because photos of his son had been leaked to the public when Golob took him to Brussels at the beginning of his term. This was clearly not the real reason, as he now has no problem publicly displaying his family on social media. An open letter from former acting Director-General of the Police, Boštjan Lindav, also reveals that plans for changes in Golob’s security were in place even before the aforementioned photo was leaked to the public. The public also criticised Golob for the fact that Miloš Milović, who was later sentenced to prison, was involved in setting up the Prime Minister’s security service. It was also unclear why a parallel organisational structure needed to be established, as the Prime Minister’s security had previously been provided by the police or the Security and Protection Office.
As the parliamentary elections are approaching, Golob is now having to face a mounting number of legal problems. The biggest of these, of course, is related to Bobnar and Lindav’s accusations of political pressure on the police. Then there is also the Karigador affair, and a number of other stories, such as Golob’s Balkan Gen-I affair, remain unresolved.
Ž. K.
