One of the biggest corruption scandals not only in Slovakia but also in the wider region is the Slovak introduction and subsequent operation of the toll system. Under strange circumstances, it ended up in the hands of an unknown company backed by well-known Czechoslovak names. The system, which is disadvantageous to the state, is still in operation today and the lobbying behind the megabusiness has not been broken by any government, despite public protests or even road blockades by road hauliers.
Four companies initially applied for the toll tender. However, in April 2008, the selection committee of the National Highway Company (NDS) eliminated three companies from the competition and the winner was a consortium of the French company Sanef (SanToll) and the Cypriot company Ibertax. The price of the contract came to €852 million, with the lowest eliminated bid being €221 million cheaper.
As it soon turned out, Ibertax was backed by two other Cypriot shell companies – Narenamo Limited and Havond Limited. According to the documents, it was possible to discern that the management behind the mailboxes worked for the J&T financial group. However, the group denies that it was interested in the toll tender.
The irregularities in the tender were pointed out by the European Commission in an official reprimand. However, Prime Minister Robert Fico and his Transport Minister Ľubomír Vážny ignored the official letters. On the contrary, they changed the law to make it impossible for unsuccessful bidders to legally challenge the tender. This prompted more urgent criticism from Brussels, but again it went unheeded.
In January 2009, the motorway company signed a contract with SkyToll for the supply of the electronic toll system. The company was founded by the shareholders and successful bidders of the controversial tender, Santoll and Ibertax. In March 2009, the European Commission found that Slovakia had breached binding rules in this tender.
However, the tender and its winners were fiercely defended by Prime Minister Robert Fico and his party. They repeatedly denied that they knew the people behind the winning companies. The tender selection committee itself was made up of people nominated by Fico’s party who had worked for well-known party sponsors in the past, such as Vladimír Poor and Milan Filo. The French company Santoll quietly withdrew from the project soon after winning the contract and left the share to Ibertax, which was backed by managers of the J&T financial group. The latter continued to reject the link.
There was also a mysterious transfer of Ibertax’s stake when 80 percent of the shares were acquired by an unknown company, Rehlingen, registered in the Czech Republic. Who was behind the company began to emerge only during later negotiations with the state during the short-lived government of Iveta Radičová, when the company was represented by Milan Fiľo or Ivan Jakabovič.
Even in the following years, the mysteries behind the Slovak myth could not be solved. As it turned out, Skytoll’s shares kept shifting to new companies, still with the true owners concealed. In particular, the Ibertax share transfers suggested that after 2012, most of the Slovak toll was controlled by Petr Kellner and Petr Syrovátko. However, Czech billionaires have tried to anonymise their ownership through shell companies.
Apart from the non-transparent ownership and the distorted competition for the toll project, the case is particularly problematic because of the disadvantages compared to similar systems abroad. In addition to the exorbitant price for the state, the buyer also received extremely unfavourable conditions for further operation.
Most of the tolls collected should go to the highway company and to further repairs of transport infrastructure. In Slovakia, however, most of the money collected goes to operations, i.e. commissions to various parts of the supply chain. Although the state promised to own the toll operation and only lease it to private parties, the opposite is true and the entire software solution is still owned by a private contractor. The state is therefore completely dependent on the private party and if it wanted to change the supplier, it would have to procure the entire toll package, as it did back in 2008. It would also have to reckon with the loss of toll collection, which the current supplier would stop collecting.
Despite the fines, pressure from anti-corruption organisations and public opinion, court cases and the disadvantages of the contract, the state did not cancel it in the following years. Only the Matovič government promised change. And this gave us the impetus to focus on the second toll tender in the next chapter of the History of Corruption.
