The Mayor of Prague 13 district David Vodrážka says all the money given to investment group Key Investments has been paid back to it. “Altogether, Kč 206,855,329 has been returned. That is the investment sum and interest. We have all the money on our account,” Vodrážka told the news server iDnes.
But the Civic Democrat (ODS) mayor did not want to say who exactly had returned the money. “That I don’t know,” he said in answer to questions from Czech Position. “It’s all the same because you will write that it was something fishy,” the mayor added.
Prague 13 last year entrusted Key Investment with Kč 200 million to invest on its behalf. The district found this year that the money had been used for investments in non-liquid bonds in the Via Chem Group and E Side Property, the group owning Slavia Prague football club’s stadium. In reaction, it demanded that it get its money and not the bonds back.
“Key Investments owed us money. It is perfectly normal that owed money is returned.”
Two installments of Kč 50 million were already sent not by Key Investments but by the lawyer Jan Pacovský. Who gave him instructions, and on whose behalf Pacovský was working, Vodrážka has not seen fit to explain.
“Key Investments owed us money. It is perfectly normal that owed money is returned,” he added.
The Prague 13 mayor acts as if everything were now in order. “Key Investments owed us money. It is perfectly normal that owed money is returned,” he told Czech Position. But if the person who owes the money is not the one who returns it, is everything still okay? According to Vodrážka’s version of events, it is.
It is unlikely that Key Investments returned the outstanding debt because its property has been subject of a distraint order since February 24. “There will be a news conference, then you will know everything,” Vodrážka wrote.
The initial decisions surrounding the selection of a little known investment company to manage council funds, lack of supervision over its activities, and long-term concealment of the details surrounding Key Investments and its deals have made the saga surrounding the investment group one of the biggest scandals in local Czech politics over recent years. As well as councils in the capital, a handful of smaller districts outside Prague also put citizens cash in the hands of the investment company which has now lost its right to trade in shares and bonds.