By: Sara Kovač (Nova24tv)
Until recently, Vesna Vuković was an “independent” journalist of the “Necenzurirano.si” web portal (“Uncensored”), but with her move to the Freedom Movement party (Gibanje Svoboda), it has once again become clear how extremely biased journalists and media are in Slovenia, and how they are just an extension of the transitional left. The so-called presstitution – the collusion between journalists and politics – is, therefore, a phenomenon that is still very much alive in our country. But Vuković has cooperated with Golob in the past already; however, she has still not explained the circumstances concerning the wire transfers from the state-owned Gen-I energy company, in which Golob was the President of the Management Board, to her former private company. As if this were not problematic enough in itself, the outgoing Minister of the interior explicitly mentioned Vuković in her report on political pressures in the Police.
The content of the letter that has been sent to the Prime Minister, Robert Golob, by the outgoing Minister of the Interior, Tatjana Bobnar, reveals the facts about the political pressures she had witnessed in the Police. In her letter, the Minister wrote to Golob about the political pressuring on her, exerted by his spokeswoman Vesna Vuković, who, in a certain situation, had suggested to Bobnar that “someone” in the Police was not doing their job as they should be, but Bobnar explained that she had not detected any indication that anyone was not doing their job as they should be.
Vuković allegedly kept lists of people and dictated investigations
Golob’s long-time confidante – their work relationship goes back to her days of being a journalist at the Dnevnik newspaper – allegedly had (or made?) lists of people whom the Police should investigate. What is more, she even communicated directly with some of the investigators (criminal investigators) of the National Bureau of investigation and gave them direct suggestions or dictated who to investigate. This is also what Bobnar is said to have said informally, and there has been a lot of talk about this within the Police, as the investigative journalist Bojan Požar has also reported. Similar things are also said to be happening at the Financial Administration of the Republic of Slovenia; however, things have not yet escalated to that extent there. According to the web portal Požareport, Vesna Vuković allegedly also personally called the editors of individual media outlets if the journalists of those outlets happened to ask some slightly unpleasant questions to the members of Golob’s government at press conferences, asking them “what they think they’re doing.”
Vuković and Črnčec are trying to bring down as many as four ministers
Vesna Vuković has been joined within the Freedom Movement party by her “soulmate” Damir Črnčec, who has become a confidant of Robert Golob. According to reliable sources, Črnčec and Vuković are not only trying to bring down Bobnar, but also at least three other ministers, who are actually very close to Golob. This means that there is also a serious power struggle going on in Golob’s ranks, reports Požar, and the other targets are the Minister of Health, Danijel Bešič Loredan; Minister of the Environment and Spatial Planning, Uroš Brežan, and even Minister of Infrastructure, Bojan Kumer. Sources say that these behind-the-scenes clashes have gone so ruthlessly far that Vesna Vuković and Damir Črnčec are allegedly planting doctored documents for the Ministers’ signatures in order to be able to compromise them later, if necessary.
Golob and Vuković have worked together in the past already
As we have previously already reported, the Gen-I energy company, while it was still under the leadership of Robert Golob, was still transferring money to the SEE M. & C. company, which was founded and for a long time also headed by Vuković. The electricity trader thus transferred 103 thousand euros to the private company, the last payment being made in January this year. The Information Commissioner rejected the Siol media outlet’s request that Gen-I discloses its contracts with Vuković’s company. A few months ago, however, we learned from reliable sources that Vesna Vuković had recently bought an apartment in Krtina near Domžale, worth 240 thousand euros. Any loyalty is dearly rewarded, and Vuković has now earned enough to afford an expensive apartment in return for her loyalty to Golob. It is still unclear why her former company received funding from Gen-I, though.
A rich history of “independent” journalism
Vuković is a former journalist of the Dnevnik newspaper and the Siol web portal, and most recently, she worked for the web portal of the media tycoon Martin Odlazek, called “Necenzurirano” (“Uncensored”), which for three years carried out contract media killings in defiance of all journalistic standards. The web portal is certainly unique in that practically all the journalists who, under the guise of independent journalism, were exclusively bringing down just one political option, after the electoral victory of their preferred political option (at the elections to the National Assembly, on the 24th of April), became part of the power structures, and one of their spouses also joined them there.
Tax evasion and escaping from the Financial Administration by opening an offshore account
It should also be pointed out that in 2017, former Director-General of the Financial Administration of the Republic of Slovenia, Ivan Simič, documented the controversial siphoning of the Telekom company’s money through Providentia into the private accounts of certain journalists, which bordered on tax evasion. The founders of Providentia, d.o.o., according to the public business register, were Primož Cirman, Tomaž Modic, Vesna Vuković and Suzana Rankov – former journalists of the Dnevnik newspaper, who were later also journalists of the Siol web portal. For the last two years, the controversial business practices of Providentia or the Necenzurirano web portal, which is part of the garbage-media empire of the tycoon Martin Odlazek, has continued through equally unknown sources of revenue, which then evaporated almost to the last cent through equally unknown services, which the web portal Požareport also reported on. According to Požareport, the Financial Administration carried out a financial audit of Providentia’s operations and “identified tax evasion” and issued a tax decision according to which Providentia would have to pay more than 100 thousand euros in additional tax. The Necenzurirano’s tax story has so far not gotten an epilogue – according to the latest data from Požareport, they still owe the Financial Administration 290,493 euros – but given that virtually all members of the Necenzurirano web portal have joined Golob in one way or another, an explanation is something that seems reasonable to expect.