Jun.21, 2010

Prague, June 18 (CTK) - The Czech Civic Democratic Party (ODS), which will most probably form a new government after the May elections, has let out its seat in Prague's historical centre under dubious circumstances that raise a suspicion of money laundering, the daily Lidove noviny (LN) reports Friday.

Since last June the party has been seated in a leased modern building in Prague-Pankrac and it has abandoned its lucrative historical building in the Lesser Town under Prague Castle that it bought for 100 million crowns, LN recalls.

The building was then leased to the Solc real estate agency owned by businessman Jan Solc. However, LN adds, the four-storey house has been vacant for months though Solc's company pays 300,000-400,000 crowns a month for it.

Moreover, the company declared a loss of 24,000 crowns last year and a year before even 1.174 million crowns, according to documents available on the Justice.cz server. Solc's other firm was not very profitable either, according to available documents, LN adds.

The ODS, which trailed the winning Social Democrats (CSSD) in the May 28-29 general elections, is now negotiating about a centre-right coalition government with TOP 09 and Public Affairs (VV). These three parties together command a comfortable majority in the Chamber of Deputies. ODS leader Petr Necas will probably become the next prime minister.

LN writes that the ODS did not launch a tender for the leasing of its seat in Prague centre.

Party manager Jan Koci told LN that Solc had contacted the ODS personally and made them a "very interesting offer," which Solc confirmed.

"So far it has been working well," Koci commented on the leasing.

On the other hand, ODS first deputy chairman David Vodrazka, responsible for the party's functioning, does not know any details of the leasing. "I really do not know. Ask manager Koci," Vodrazka wrote in an SMS sent to LN.

Solc refused to explain where the money for the high rent came from while the building remains vacant.

He told LN that he has a client seriously interested in leasing the building - an embassy.

Yet he showed the building's interior to a LN reporter who passed herself off as a person interested in the real estate. Moreover, an agent from Solc's company offered the whole house for rent to the reporter, LN writes.

Solc has signed the lease contract with the ODS only until the end of 2010. Koci says the leasing might be extended as the party plans to stay in the offices at Prague-Pankrac.

Property dealers addressed by LN expressed surprise at the "strange leasing" of the ODS seat to a real estate agency that pays high sums for the whole house with the intention to hire it itself in the future.

"I have never experienced it in my practice and I have heard about something like that for the first time," David Cernik, executive of the Maxima reality, one of the largest real estate agencies in Prague, told LN.

Koci told LN that Solc might by motivated by "a gentleman's agreement" promising him that if the party intended to sell the building in the future, "he would eventually participate in the sale." At the same time, Koci claims that the ODS does not plan to sell it, LN writes.