By: Sara Rančigaj / Nova24TV
The Court of Audit apparently has not identified any major irregularities in the procurement of protective equipment, but information is increasingly emerging that it intends to shake the foundations of the government in a different way. This time, they supposedly even want to use doctors to write something ugly and harmful against Siriusmed ventilators, with which they want to recreate an affair that does not exist. “Now some are tearing down the government through me and urging doctors to write something ugly about Siriusmed ventilators, with which they can take them out of use. Since they have no evidence that the purchase was harmful, as they are being used without any complications, they would like to invent “evidence”. This is an independent NPU,” the Minister of Economy, Zdravko Počivalšek, reacted sharply on Twitter, emphasising the operation of the NPU, as he found it illogical that 78 criminals were investigating the case for small money, while only one criminalist dealt with one billion euros. “For SRIPT and 160 thousand euros, they hired 78 criminal investigators. For 1.5 billion euros in TEŠ6 they did not detect any signs of crime and left one criminal investigator from Celje to deal with the case. However, he has obviously done his job and the state will now receive 260 million euros back,” he explained.
Marko Noč, an internationally renowned cardiologist and winner of the Zois Award for Excellence in Intensive Care, was the head of an expert commission that assessed the suitability of respirators – including Siriusmed ventilators from Geneplanet company. A few months ago, he explained to the public that there were too many hints that the ventilators were not suitable, which blurred the professionally clear situation and created an apparent rift in the profession, polarised people and unfortunately also discredited individual experts, and labelled Siriusmed respirators R30 as unsuitable. Noč later claimed that Siriusmed R30 ventilators are professionally acceptable, although they are ranked lower on the priority scale of use.
They later wanted to deny the government with a report from the Court of Audit, however, it appears that the criminals cannot find any irregularities in the report and according to Economy Minister Zdravko Počivalšek, the NPU or his opponents want to launch a new affair, with which they want to use doctors to give a negative opinion on the aforementioned ventilators. “Now some are tearing down the government through me and urging doctors to write something ugly about Siriusmed ventilators in order to take them out of use. Since they have no evidence that the purchase was harmful, as they are being used without any complications, they would like to invent “evidence” themselves. This is an independent NPU,” Počivalšek responded sharply on Twitter.
Počivalšek is critical of the organisation of work at the NPU
In the whole case, Počivalšek is critical of the organisation of work at the NPU. In this, he refers to the work of criminal investigators in the SRIPT case, which, among other things, charged former Minister Aleksandra Pivec with counterfeiting, still from the time of Marjan Šarec’s government. According to the SMC, the explanations dispelled all doubts about the legality and transparency of the procedure by which the company received a public subsidy. The SMC was convinced that the outbreak of an affair was started by journalists, while the NPU used 78 criminal investigators to investigate a project where 160 thousand euros were intended, and in the TEŠ6 case only one criminal investigator was used. “For 1.5 billion euros, TEŠ6 did not detect any signs of crime and left one criminal investigator from Celje to deal with the case. However, he has obviously done his job and the state will now receive 260 million euros back,” Počivalšek was critical of the organisation of work in the NPU in the investigation of scandals.
It is worth mentioning that the President of the Court of Audit, Tomaž Vesel, participated in the launch of the affair with the purchase of protective equipment, but he has still not submitted a permit to perform two functions. Namely, he is the president of the Court of Audit, and at the same time he earns nice fees at the expense of his audit work at FIFA. Vesel admitted that he still does not have the consent of the CPC to perform both functions at the same time. This was followed by numerous calls for his resignation, as they are convinced that he is destroying the integrity of the Court of Audit. Moreover, the Constitutional Judge Rok Čeferin also did not resign from the position of constitutional judge, despite proven irregularities.