Highway robbery
In late-March the cabinet canceled the Kč 125bn
contract with Housing & Construction for building the
D47 highway, but the issue won't go away. The police
now plan to question all the ministers of the Zeman
cabinet, which had approved the deal. This includes
Vladimír Špidla, Stanislav Gross and several other
current ministers. Špidla's cabinet has never said
officially that corruption was the reason for canceling
the contract and has always instead talked about the
high cost. However, U.S. Ambassador Craig Stapleton
praised the cancellation in Hospodářské noviny earlier
this month and said it was a major anti-corruption move
(even though Haliburton of the U.S. was a member of
the D47 consortium). The cabinet never publicly
protested against Stapleton's remarks, thereby giving
them more weight. It'll be curious if the police now find
that the deal was squeaky clean.
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