Zmařená investice státního podniku ČEZ

State Enterprise ČEZ a.s. will spend 25 billion crowns on the modernization of the Prunéřov thermal power plant. Contracts have been signed. Problem is, there is not enough coal available in the country to sustain the plant’s operation. The investment is suspect and will mean a big loss for the Czech Republic. But whistleblowers are being silenced. The Anticorruption Endowment (NFPK) possesses incontrovertible evidence about that.

The fraudulent contract may have been inspired by the former chief of ČEZ, Martin Roman. In 2010, the best part of the modernization contract was awarded to the companies Škoda Power and Vítkovice a.s., while there are many indications that Martin Roman continued to own Škoda Power even after he became General Director of ČEZ.

NFPK has evidence that Severočeské doly a.s. communications manager Vladimír Budinský was aware of the fraud (ČEZ  owns the Severočeské doly mining company). We have the text of Budinský’s e-mail message to geology and mining expert Věra Ježková, urging her to help him misdirect the authorities and the general public.

Evidence about well-informed people being muzzled is provided by a sound recording capturing lobbyist Miloslav Kožnar applying pressure to a person, who will not get reconciled to the losses suffered by the state due to this particular scheme. In the recording, Kožnar voices fears that ČEZ shares will plummet if the public learns the truth, and overtly claims that “this country is not governed by the prime minister but by ČEZ”.

“Whatever ČEZ will do, the state will lose billions or tens of billions of crowns,” says member of the NFPK Board of Trustees Karel Randák. One of the loss variants is restricting the operation or the early closure of an electric power station; possibly also withdrawing from contracts on the supply of coal from the Severočeské doly-owned mines to other customers, such as heating plants. Another loss option is securing coal supplies from other sources (purchases from the company Czech Coal, or the acquisition of that company as a whole, importing coal from abroad and the breach of mining limits). “According to numerous expert studies, the coal reserves will be sufficient to sustain the planned three power blocs of the plant only until 2029, and not 2040-2045, the planned date for the return on the investment,” Karel Randák adds.

Contact: Bob Flieder, NFPK Manager of Communications, tel.: 734 315 354, e-mail: bob.fliedr@nfpk.cz, www.nfpk.cz