THE CITY OFFICE LIES - THE MAYOR WAS NOT SEEKING INFORMATION ABOUT THE MEMORANDUM
SLOVAK VERSION
Even though mayor Raši did sign the resolution refusing the Memorandum of understanding between the Ministry of Economy of the Slovak Republic and European Uranium Resources, it seems the Memorandum still keeps haunting him. The interest of media had originally been arised by the ignorance of the mayor to the existence and the contents of the Memorandum. On 14 January 2013 the spokesperson of Košice was quoted by the news agencies to say: "We have no information whatsoever about the memorandum even being signed but we shall request it and we will be seeking the latest information concerning this matter". Source: https://www.energia.sk/spravodajstvo/jadrova-energia/slovensko-ma-pri-kosiciach-vyznamne-lozisko-uranu/9290/
Reading this, on 25 January 2013 (in accordance with the Law on information freedom) I asked the city office to send me a copy of the memorandum assuming they had already requested it and received it from the Ministry of economy. In its incompetent and almost ironical answer to my request dated 6 February 2013 the city office replied: "Since we don't have the Memorandum document available, we advise you to turn with your request directly to the Ministry of Economy or to the Ludovika Energy Ltd. company." After some more subsequent correspondence - an appeal, its refusal, another appeal - I finally obtained from the city office a non-avoidant resolution dated 22 March. In the resolution the city office stated that "the information requested was not available to the liable entity at the moment when the information request was being processed. However, since in the meantime the information has become publicly available ... on the internet (on the website https://www.ludovika-energy.sk/memorandum.pdf as well as on https://www.menejstatu.sk/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/memorandum.pdf) and thus the liable entity, too, now has the information at its disposal from the quoted source, .... and therefore it is not necessary to proceed according to §15 sec. 1 of the Law no, 211/2000 Z.z. and forward the information request to the Ministry of Economy". Besides stating this, in its resolution the city office refused the remaining two points of my original request (i.e. 2. to provide a copy of the City of Košice's request addressed to the Ministry of Economy asking for the Memorandum, 3. to provide the reply of the Ministry of Economy to the City of Košice's request) stating that "it doesn't have the information in the required scope available". (The resolution in Slovak language is attached below)
From the above it undoubtedly follows that despite the public statements of the city office, mayor Raši whose signature can be found on the resolutions, DID NOT officially seek information about the Memorandum from minister Malatinský at least until 22 March 2013.
However, already a couple of days before that, on 11 March 2013, the Korzár daily wrote in past tense that at the end of February the mayor had sent a letter to Bratislava, continuing that: "(The mayor) asked the minister and the responsible employees at the ministry to answer fundamental questions concerning the memorandum and potential impacts of the mining on the environment", the city office said, adding that they should inform the public about the reply from the ministry. Source: https://m.sme.sk/?cl=++++6728733
It seems that there was nothing to inform about. The city office has lied in the name of the mayor. What mayor Raši can say to this?