The Minister of Agriculture resigned due to the payment of hotel bills
STA, April 20, 2022 – Minister of Agriculture Jože Podgoršek resigned on Wednesday after he became the target of media scrutiny due to ambiguity regarding the payment of his weekend in a prestigious hotel in Bohinj in January. He said he was “resigning solely due to late payment of the bill” and took responsibility for that.
“This is a fact and I regret it,” Podgorsek said in a press release posted on Facebook, according to media reports, that he had not paid for his stay at the hotel.
The Ombudsman for the Prevention of Bribery has already launched a preliminary investigation into possible violations of ethics, but Podgoršek himself claims that he was blackmailed and reported the matter to the criminal police.
Last week, the uncensored investigative portal reported that Podgoršek and his wife were staying at a hotel owned by crypto-millionaire Damian Merlak, but did not pay the bill in the amount of 800 euros, only after they were asked to comment this month.
After the report was published, Podgoršek said that he wanted to send it by post because he was in a hurry with his wife, but said that he had not received the bill at the time and that he was not aware of it until he was contacted by Uncensored. .
The portal thought that the payment of the bill might be related to KŽK, a company that owns large agricultural areas in Gorenjska and was partially owned by the owner of the Merlak Hotel until 2019, who severed all formal ties with him.
For two years now, KŽK has been in dispute with the Agricultural Land Fund over the land it leases from the fund and wants to sublet it to farmers. The fund refused an out-of-court settlement, and its director Irena Majcen was dismissed in November last year.
Majcen claimed at the time that she had been fired because she did not want to take into account Podgoršek’s pressure to settle in favor of KŽK and another company with a similar dispute, KG Lendava. The case is now in court.
The story turned around yesterday with a statement from KŽK that the company had paid Podgoršek’s hotel bill, a copy of the paid bill from 30 January, which was obtained by many media outlets.
KŽK said that he was “completely subordinate to the minister and because the bill had to be paid, he wanted to send it to us and we paid it.” But KZK also said it “did not request or receive any favors or privileges.”
Yesterday, Podgoršek “strongly rejected” any connection with KŽK or allegations that the company had arranged a private stay for him in the hotel, adding that he had paid the bill out of his own pocket.
According to Uncensored, Podgoršek demanded that the invoice paid by KŽK be abolished and a new one issued so that he could pay it.
Podgoršek, who joined the coalition party Nova Slovenija (NSi) as a minister and is running in the elections on April 24, claims that the KŽK is blackmailing him.
NSi President Matej Tonin said today during his resignation that he had a long conversation with the Minister yesterday, that Podgoršek had accepted responsibility and that the move was a “sign of political culture”.
Podgoršek added that his “lack of attention to detail was exploited by those who wanted to take advantage of it.”
He is convinced that by not succumbing to pressure and advocating for Gorenjska farmers, he “became very disturbing for some”.
“Some people are obviously trying very hard to issue and correct a lot of bills to smear me. These days, I’ve gotten different versions of bills from the hotel, the purpose of which I can only guess,” he added.
Podgoršek said that there were obviously two different invoices for the same service, issued in two different names and with different amounts.
He and his wife spent the weekend in a hotel on the basis of a package that cost 800 euros, and an invoice in Podgoršek’s name was sent to his private e-mail and paid.
The media recently published another invoice, which was issued in a different name and is worth 578 euros. “I have nothing to do with this bill,” the outgoing minister said.
He added that it was “a pre-staged trial against me and my family, which is likely to continue with various fictitious information from those who want to harm me.”
“My resignation does not mean that Gorenjska farmers will be left to fend for themselves,” he said, adding that he would do everything in his power to protect them with all legal remedies available.
Tonin added that he was convinced that this issue had arisen because KŽK wanted to force Podgoršek to act in accordance with its interests.
Podgoršek, who was appointed Minister of Agriculture for similar reasons at the end of 2020 after the resignation of Aleksandra Pivec, is the fourth minister in Janez Janša’s government to resign before the end of his term.
In addition to Pivec, Minister of Health Tomaž Gantar left the cabinet early in early 2021 after the Pensioners’ Party (DeSUS) left the coalition, and Minister of Justice Lilijana Kozlovič in May 2021.