Police are investigating the promotion of Czech Finance MinisterAlena Schillerová (ANO) on social media. According to the prosecutor, there is a suspicion that there may have been a violation of duties in managing the foreign property. An audit commissioned by Zbyněk Stanjura (ODS) revealed the misuse of the ministry’s resources to present the minister.
A suspected violation of duties in the administration of foreign property may have occurred, said Jan Lelek, the district prosecutor for Prague 1. According to the Ministry of Finance audit, the office employees who created the content for Schillerová’s social networks were paid substandard salaries.
Based on several criminal complaints from citizens and his own initiative, Lelek referred the case to the police. “I evaluated the case myself and referred the matter to the National Centre against Organised Crime,” the prosecutor said. He said it was up to the police to investigate the case. The NCOZ has not commented on the case.
When Schillerová headed the ministry, the ministry employed a professional photographer and a cameraman to take care of the minister’s presentation. The latter included footage made public on social media, which critics say was mainly for her personal presentation.
“For me, this is a clear misuse of the resources of the Ministry of Finance for its own self-presentation. A result is a huge number of photos and videos to which the ministry has no access and which, in many cases, do not even relate to its agenda,” Stanjura commented on the audit results.
From September 2020 to the end of last November, the state paid CZK 1.93 million for the salaries of the photographer and cameraman, with employee contributions of CZK 2.5 million.
Schillerova countered that this was to promote the ministry’s activities and argued that some of the photos “with a more personal character” were paid for by the ANO movement.
Stanjura had earlier turned to the Office for Supervision of the Management of Political Parties and Political Movements (ÚOHPS) to investigate whether the rules for financing the election campaign before last year’s parliamentary elections had been followed.