Negotiations on the Opencard project have not stalled
The efforts of the Prague City Hall and eMoneyServices (EMS), the Opencard project manager, to reach a mutual agreement remain deadlocked. There is no consensus on how much Prague will pay EMS for the services provided from last April to the end of January this year, nor what other business relations will look like. Debts from the past, which the company estimated at 170 million crowns, are being settled by the court.
“I would say that the divorce phase is currently underway, with the two parties telling each other what they are up to and how they will settle. It is necessary to divorce and clean the table so that we can enter into a new relationship, “said Mayor Adriana Krnáčová after yesterday’s round of negotiations.
According to her, Prague has the will to settle relations, services that EMS provided to the city, however, must be appreciated by experts. Without their opinions, the negotiations will not move to conclusions. “There are a number of variants in the game,” Krnáčová added.
Read the gloss of Jana Havligerová:
EMS submitted a memorandum of settlement of debts from 2014 and 2015 to Prague, but the city management prepared its own version of the document by the middle of next week. This should then be approved by the capital city council.
In a week, passengers in Prague’s public transport bought two hundred different subscription paper coupons and collected 500 paper vouchers.
According to spokesman Martin Opatrný, the EMS company last week asked the municipal department of informatics to “cut it off” from Opencard. She wants to make sure that after a possible collapse of the system, she will not be accused of deliberately disrupting it.
Opencard, which is owned by 1.2 million passengers, cost about 1.35 billion crowns. The uncertain future has led councilors to make a partial switch to paper vouchers available. All coupons will be available from the beginning of March.
