The cases of the Prague transport company: Why did it bury politicians and managers?
updated yesterday at 16:37
Martin Rumler
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The Transport Company of the Capital City of Prague is the largest employer in the metropolis. It has an annual turnover of around 20 billion crowns and 11,000 employees. According to the latest published annual report, DPP spent almost six billion crowns on investments in 2020. Part of the company’s income is the contribution of the owner of the company, ie the capital. The company announces a number of public contracts, and in the sum of billions in value, they can therefore attract lobbyists as well as, in extreme cases, crimes.
Prague feeder
In August 2012, police officers broke into the DPP headquarters. Among other things, they were brought there by an investigation based on a criminal report, which, according to the then director of the DPP, Vladimír Lich. He was removed from office the day after the announcement. The head of the anti-corruption organization Transparency International, David Ondračka, described the operators of the Prague metro, trams and public transport buses as a safe feeder, followed by starving deer after the winter – and they always get what they need. It is said that the transport company was tunneled through the pushed companies. A number of cases were unraveled, but they had never really ended up condemning the perpetrators. Sometimes they were locked up by the police, other times the defendants were acquitted. By the way, the events in the DPP were for one reason by which the deputies in 2013 justified the dismissal of Mayor Bohuslav Svoboda. The then Deputy Mayor for Transport, Josef Nosek, also graduated.
Registered office of the transport company.Source: CTK
Million rewards for outgoing managers
At the turn of 2011 and 2012, outgoing DPP managers paid record bonuses, which in some cases reached almost one million crowns a month. For example, the then economic director Ivo Štika received 948 thousand crowns in remuneration in January and February 2012. This makes a total of 2.8 million crowns in addition to the basic salary. The vast majority of the awards were presented by Jaroslav Stůj, who temporarily took over his position for two months after the departure of director Martin Dvořák. He himself allocated a reward of 2.6 million crowns. Then he finished and the city had the DPP rewards plan revised.
Jaroslav Stůj (in undated archive image).Source: CTK
Ticket case
In order for Neograph, as to win the DPP ticket order, it undertook to pay 17 pennies on each ticket from Cokeville Assets Inc. from the British Virgin Islands. According to the police, the money went into the pockets of lobbyists at the expense of the transport company. Therefore, in 2013, she accused five people in this case, including the former former director of the transport company, Martin Dvořák. On February 13, 2014, lobbyist Ivo Rittig was arrested and charged. Along with him, the police accused lawyer David Michal, managing director of the Neograph printer Jan Janků and Rittig’s business partner Peter Kmet. In February 2017, police proposed to indict 18 accused, including lobbyist Ivo Rittiga. The trial began in October 2018, but meant the loss of the indictment and the police. In 2019, the Municipal Court in Prague ruled on acquittal of all defendants. The Court of Appeal returned some of the charges to a new hearing, but a acquittal was also handed down here. On September 1, 2021, the High Court in Prague ruled on the acquittal of all defendants.
Ticket case for a Prague transport company.Source: CTK
Confidential contract for the recovery of fines
In April 2017, the existence of a secret contract of the Prague Transport Company with enforcers of the fine came to light, which enabled them to collect extraordinary rewards. According to the document, lawyers could receive fees from DPP even if the debtor found himself in insolvency and thus avoided the obligation to pay. According to the calculations of People in Need, the company could spend up to half a billion crowns a year due to such an agreed agreement. This is due to the fees not only for lawyers, but also for executors. After the details of the contract became public, the mayor of Prague, Adriana Krnáčová, forced her to change the transport company. The company argued that the confidentiality of the contracts was justified on the grounds of trade secrets.
Illustrative photo.Source: VLP Archive / Šťastný Vladimír
Car rental owned by DPP
In March 2018, Czech Television pointed out that the company had been paying tens of millions of crowns a year for seven years for renting cars that previously belonged to it. The contract was created at a time when the DPP was managed by Martin Dvořák, and it could not be terminated. These were the cars of the so-called in-house transport, ie passenger cars, cleaning cars, multi-carriages and the like. When the contract was published, the then DPP management declared the contract unfavorable. only that the company that rented the car to the company had a hidden, untraceable owner. Let’s start dealing with politics, but without a known result.
DPP cars, illustration photo.Source: DPP
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