After a cattler, the PPA state agroagenture has another scandal

The Agricultural Paying Agency (PPA) disputed more than 150,000 euros to the company close to longtime official Daniele Onderišinová. Instead of a pension from the money, she seems to have supported a family house.

The last control of the project has shown that the purpose or conditions of the subsidy were not respected. PPA admitted mistakes only after more than a year and repeated issues of the Foundation Stop Corruption.

As it is possible that several of the existing checks, even carried out on the site of the « guesthouse », have not seen these violations, remains unexplained. This may be found by the police to which the Foundation has previously addressed suspicions of unauthorized support.

Signals that PPA officials in a non -standard way in the village of Lehnice instead of a guesthouse have supported The family house of his colleague was a non -escape.

The guest house is said to be properly operated

The object stands on the plot that owned entrepreneur Elizabeth Papp, entangled in a cattle case. It was originally confessed to the bribe for the equipment of agrodotation, but just before the conclusion of the guilt and punishment agreement, but changed her words to a « loan repayment ».

The Foundation has already filed a criminal complaint for suspicions. The newly formed Office of Combating Organized Crime (ÚBOK) advanced to the District Trnava criminal.

After two months, the Foundation found out what happened to him. Even after urgency, we did not receive a reaction from the police.

The Foundation also joined the daughter of official Veronika Onderišinová, Managing Director of Verkad, who received a subsidy from PPA. She refused information about the violation of the purpose of the support, saying that the guesthouse was properly operated and cares for it.

Booking: Accommodation does not accept reservations

The subsidy of more than EUR 150,000 was approved by the state agroagenture to Verkad of Lehnice nine years ago, in March 2016 under the Eurofund Rural Development Program. The aim was to support the construction of accommodation and tourism in the village.

Verkad was just a few months before. It was owned by daughters Daniela Onderišinová, who at that time held the management function in PPA.

Shortly after the support of the support, there were suggestions that the Slovak and European money went to the construction of an ordinary family house instead of the pension. The PPA has repeated them repeatedly, but it did not detect a violation of the conditions.

As we were convinced on the spot, the pension building is located between family houses on the outskirts of Lehnice.

Pension in Lehnice. (Source: Stop Corruption Foundation)

On the map, portals for reservation of accommodation and on the house itself, the property is marked as Villa Rose. However, although we have entered several accommodation dates in the reservation systems, it was not free in either.

Unavailable accommodation on Stayinslovakia.com. (Source: (processed NZK))

The booking portal even states in Ville Rose that the accommodation is not accepting the reservation. It has the best possible rating, but only from one client from summer 2023.

Unavailable Penzion Reservation at Booking.com. (Source: Booking.com (processed NZK))

Obviously, the operator is not interested in being contacted, as the links on social networks are de facto dysfunctional and the email interest in the reservation has not come to answer.

Veronika Onderišinová about not receiving bookings through booking if she responded a single reference that she would check the situation, because according to her, they also come from there. 'The purpose of support is respected. We normally take guests. They write us sporadically and references, ”she added.

In 2023, Verkad has reached sales of its own services of only € 8,000, it said they were worse and better months: « We hope it will be better. » In recent years, the company's sales are rather declining.

Company Verkad, spol. with RO, and its profit and sales. (Source: Finstat.sk)

They were not admitted until more than a year

The latest PPA for the Foundation admitted that the check that ended on January 31 was revealed several serious violations.

It is twice the use of money contrary to the purpose for which they were provided, the violation of the rules to be provided, as well as breach of the rules in the procurement of the contractor. Violations de facto fully correspond to the support provided.

The PPA did not want to do so. When we asked them last April, we received a evasive answer. Although the agency confirmed that the control has already ended, it did not specify as, because “after the end there are other internal procedures, within the individual organizational units of PPA. The procedures in question are not yet completed '.

After a year, the Foundation again asked about the results of the inspection and also the legislation on the basis of which the PPA implements « internal procedures ». This time the agency's response also included the identified violations. She added to the internal procedures that she « ended them ».

When asked whether such « internal examination » is standard and under what legislation it is « controlled » by PPA, the PPA replied that internal procedures also include « acquainting the content of specific documents by various PPA organizational units ». As far as legislation is concerned, the Agency briefly appealed to the Financial Control Act.

Who is the official close to the supported company

Daniela Onderišinová has been working in PPA since 2007. Since then she has gone through various positions, in recent years she has been managing the implementation of project support, ie what the company has also acquired.

According to PPA, the conflict of interest in the support of Verkad was excluded that at that time Oderišinová was in a different position.

However, the Foundation asked whether the agency took some steps against its official after finding a violation. Even whether the case has been reviewed by the internal audit of PPA, for example, as regards the independence of controllers. She did not respond to our questions.

As we mentioned, PPA has been reviewing the Verkad project several times in the past, even on the spot, but she found no mistakes.

However, the Foundation has documents that indicate that the deadlines may have been violated. The project requires the first request to be made for support before work on the construction site.

It is suspected that a substantial part of the construction was realized before the announcement of the call itself in the summer of 2015. At that time, Verkad was established. She filed an application for a subsidy in autumn 2015.

Work on the construction began in 2014. (Source: Stop Corruption Foundation)

At the time of the announcement of the call (summer 2015), in which Verkad also succeeded, the construction was already finished. (Source: Stop Corruption Foundation)

There are also suspicions that the total cost of the project was overvalued to obtain almost full amount for construction from the Eurofunds and the Slovak state budget.

The subsidy pays only 45 percent of the total budget. The rest is paid by the applicant from his own funds.

If the value of the project was artificially inflated, the PPA contribution would cover a much higher share of costs than 45 percent and the applicant would pay significantly less or even anything from his own money.

In the case of Verkad, the total value of the project, ie the accommodation, together with additional activities, was pronounced at EUR 340,000. Of these, Eurofunds and the state budget contributed EUR 153,000.

Similar buildings in the locality of Lehnice move around 125,000 euros at the time of the “pension”. For over 200,000 euros, fully furnished houses were sold. In any case, however, they did not close to the priced amount of the Verkad project.

The Stop Corruption Foundation has long monitors the fight against corruption and the introduction of transparent processes in the Agricultural Paying Agency. For the parliamentary, Slovakia faced the biggest sanctions in the field of Eurofunds for farmers. At the same time, the distribution of money for the AGRO European Commission is still monitoring in detail.