At the beginning of the week, the Prime Minister asked the office of Justice Minister Andreja Katič to forward to him the audit report on the controversial purchase of what was supposed to be the new court building on Litijska Street in Ljubljana. The report, which is supposed to be very incriminating for the Prime Minister, has apparently still not been handed over to him, as the Ministry is looking for “grounds” to make the report public. However, this has caused some new complications to arise.
The Minister of Justice, Andreja Katič, is still the only member of the government team who is (officially) aware of the contents of the audit. In addition, some media outlets belonging to the transitional left also know the contents of the report. The Prime Minister has not yet seen the report because the auditor, Suzana Hötzl, has allegedly forbidden the Minister from sending the communication without her permission.
The auditor is currently on a 14-day annual leave. But the very fact that the auditor is telling the Minister what she can and cannot do is very much out of the ordinary. After all, it is the Minister who runs the Ministry. And she has allegedly already instructed the Ministry’s staff to turn the report into a public document.
The report has supposedly also not been made public yet because the Minister believes that it is unfinished. She argues that the auditor should have made it available to all those involved. Meanwhile, the auditor has referred to the Audit Regulations to support her decision.
But according to our information, the Justice Minister’s allegations are a lie. The head of the Internal Audit Service, Suzana Hötzl, allegedly never said this to the Minister, nor did she ever write it down. On the contrary, she told both the Minister and the media that the audit was closed and the report itself was public information.
The report is incriminating the very top of the state authorities
The report is supposed to reveal what the opposition has been pointing out all along. The primary responsibility for the controversial purchase lies with the resigned Minister of Justice, Dominika Švarc Pipan, who signed off on the purchase, as well as with the Minister of Finance Klemen Boštjančič and Prime Minister Robert Golob. The purchase would not have been possible without their knowledge, the leader of the opposition, Janez Janša, has repeatedly stressed.
The report accuses Golob, Boštjančič and Švarc Pipan of illegally reallocating money from the budget reserve.
Ž. K.
