By: Vida Kocjan
A prominent representative of the Social Democrats (SD), even its vice-president, and two-time Minister of Education (in the government of Alenka Bratušek and the government of Marjan Šarec), 46-year-old Jernej Pikalo, had a go at Nova Slovenija (NSi) party. He is also bothered that the state will take care of rescuing people also in natural and similar disasters.
He scorns at the fact that the Minister of Defence Matej Tonin signed an agreement on cooperation between the Ministries of Defense of the two countries in the field of aviation during a working meeting in Rome with his Italian counterpart Lorenzo Guieri. In addition to long-term cooperation, part of this agreement is also the purchase of the C-27J Spartan tactical transport aircraft.
The aircraft will serve the Slovenian Army and the whole of Slovenia
The aircraft worth around 72 million euros (including VAT) will serve the needs of the Slovenian Armed Forces and will also be intended for the transport of persons infected and seriously injured by monitoring vital functions and for extinguishing fires. The total price also includes logistical support, spare parts, crew training, use of simulators, technical documentation and final certification. With the purchase of the aircraft, Slovenia will also become independent in providing air transport for its own needs. Last year’s outbreak of the covid-19 pandemic showed that we were mostly dependent on other carriers to evacuate our citizens from abroad and to provide supplies of protective equipment.
Pikalo, known for not doing anything in his tenure
And now the SD party (much like the Levica) opposes the purchase of this aircraft. He also makes fabulous comparisons when buying an airplane, namely: “A proton accelerator for advanced cancer treatment would be built for 50 million euros. National Library (NUK 2) for 70 million euros. So why would we have that if we can have one plane with a lot of modules?”
In the time of SD, they enormously wasted money: for themselves and their own
Let’s remember. During his two ministries, Pikalo was not able to prepare a single tender for co-financing the construction of kindergartens and schools in Slovenia. The last tender was in 2011, the next during the current government of Janez Janša. Moreover, at the time of the SD party sitting in government, as much as 75 million euros were wasted on various studies instead of building homes for the elderly.
And Pikalo? A big spendthrift of taxpayers’ money
We know him as a full professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences and also the author of the infamous Higher Education Act, which in 2014, under the leadership of the Iskra Student Association (led by Štrukelj’s son), drove thousands of students to the streets of Ljubljana. By law, he tried to introduce tuition fees for full-time studies. His close associate at the ministry was also the infamous Jernej Štromajer, known for his vulgar and insulting greetings to Christians, whom he greeted for Christmas 2019: “Happy holidays, you dirty animals.” Pikalo protected him and stepped in his defence.
Pikalo is also known as the destroyer of private education, the SD campaign was financed from the state budget. He is also known as a big spendthrift of taxpayers’ money, during the tenure of the government of Marjan Šarec he burned almost 31 thousand taxpayers’ euros in just a few months just for the travel expenses of his business trips, which was almost 2 thousand euros a month. He used a business card on his travels, mostly for hotel services and also for renting a tailcoat. He spent an additional 4,400 euros with the card, or a little more than 200 euros a month.
Pikalo travelled quite often, attending various conferences and meetings, in Paris, London, Madrid, Tokyo, Beijing and so on.
