Spills and yachts

Nothing in the CR can compare to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, but the huge tender for environmental cleanup does have a few traits in common. There are oil slicks, chemical messes, an overabundance of prevarication and maybe even a yacht or two. The main face of the eco-tender, ex-Finance Minister Miroslav Kalousek, risks becoming the Tony Hayward of the CR in terms of the ridicule heaped on him by the media. ČT caught him on camera saying that it's impossible to put a price on an individual cleanup project. Unless, as he explained in detail in LN, there is a middleman who guarantees a single price for all the remaining cleanup jobs across the country. This insistence on a middleman is eerily reminiscent of the role played by Kalousek's buddy Richard Háva in defense contracts. This leads some people to put two and two together and to suspect that in one way or another, Háva or some of the yacht-lovers from Tuscany are lurking somewhere in the eco-shadow. At some point, the gooey truth will rise to the surface. [Czech Republic Lidové noviny Česká televize Reporteři ecological ecology BP privatization of public authority]