Prague, April 29 (CTK) – A Central Bohemia office is to decide in May on how to further proceed in the suspected EU subsidy fraud worth 50 million crowns related to the Capi hnizdo project of ANO leader Andrej Babis, the region’s governor Jaroslava Pokorna Jermanova (ANO) told Czech Television (CT) today.
Based on an analysis on the Capi hnizdo (Strok Nest) case that is to be available by the end of April, the Regional Council of the Regional Operational Programme (ROP) Central Bohemia will decide at its meeting in mid-May on its next steps in the case, including the possible demand that the whole subsidy is returned, she said.
Jermanova, ANO’s deputy chairwoman, said the council’s meeting would be open to the public.
The police accused the businessman Babis, currently the prime minister, and ANO first deputy chairman Jaroslav Faltynek of a subsidy fraud last year.
Until late 2007, the Farma Capi hnizdo company belonged to Babis’s Agrofert concern. Afterwards, its stake was transferred to bearer shares so that Capi hnizdo as a small firm could win the subsidy of 50 million crowns, which a firm of the huge Agrofert could never get. It observed this condition for a few years, but later became part of Agrofert again.
Jermanova rejected the view that she would influence the dealing with the Capi hnizdo case in any way. “I play no part in it,” she told CT.