The headmaster uses the chat of the family that gives orders. All right, Prague said

As the director of the asset management department, Jan Rak is responsible by virtue of his position for the management of real estate in Prague worth billions. Seznam News reported a month ago that this high-ranking official lives with his wife in a luxury mountain chalet in the ski resort of Harrachov.

At the same time, this so-called chalet has the same co-owner as the company JE Group, which Jan Rak, as an official, signed multi-million dollar public contracts awarded “from hand” in recent years.

Jan Rak responded to Seznam Zpráv’s investigation four days later – he submitted his resignation, justifying it in order to protect his family. He did not specify the date when he will leave the position. With the fact that councilor for property Adam Zábranský (Pirates) asked him to wait until an internal legal opinion is drawn up.

Finding List of Messages:

However, the result of the month-long analysis is that, despite the presented findings and Raka’s connections, everything is fine from the point of view of the municipality. “After a thorough investigation, legal assessment and careful analysis of this particular case, the legal support department of the Prague municipality came to a clear legal opinion that director Rak did not violate any regulation in relation to the issue of conflict of interest with his actions,” stated Vít Hofmann, a spokesman for the Prague municipality.

The magistrate also argues that the people to whom Rak signed contracts also employed his wife.

“From the publicly available information, which was confirmed as part of our investigation, it follows that the legal title to the use of real estate in Harrachov is the employment of the wife of Director Rak in the business company, in which she worked as a statutory body, or her related activities, not the position of director of the property management department, which Jan Rak holds,” added spokesman Hofman.

Code of ethics of the municipality

“By his actions, the employee prevents situations in which he would be exposed to a possible conflict between his private interest and the performance of his work. A private interest is any advantage for him, his family, close or related persons and natural or legal persons with whom he had or has business relations.

The employee must not abuse his official position for personal gain and is obliged to avoid a conflict of interest.“

Responsible Councillor: It is a problem

Councilor Adam Zábranský (Pirates), who is in charge not only of property but also of transparency, however, holds a different opinion than the officials. According to him, Cancer’s behavior is a problem.

“I am convinced that the use of the cottage raises doubts, and therefore I asked the director of the office to forbid the director of the department Rak from giving orders to this company,” said Zábranský.

Since 2018, the director of the Rak property department with JE Group has signed work orders for approximately 20 million crowns. Rak and the company concluded the largest volume of orders between 2020 and 2023.

How is Jan Rak connected with the company to which he gave millions of orders?

JE Group did technical supervision for Prague, supervised work safety or provided consultancy. Many contracts came in under two million, so the union led by Jan Rak did not have to compete according to the rules of the Public Procurement Act.

At the same time, Councilor Zábranský said that the municipality learned about the association with the company from Seznam Zpráv. “I consider it unfortunate that we only found out about this in retrospect and had to rely on Jan Rak explaining it – that shouldn’t happen,” the councilor added.

The anti-corruption organization Transparency International, which analyzed the situation for Seznam Zpravy in the past, came up with the opposite opinion from the municipal officials – according to it, Rak violated the law.

Cancer: I won’t confirm or deny anything

Municipality spokesman Hofmann was unable to say if and when Raka’s resignation would be accepted by municipality director Martin Kubelka. “According to my information, director Rak himself is now considering his possible stay in office, also with regard to the case’s impact on his personal life and possible damage to his reputation,” added Hofmann.

Even Zábranský does not want to comment on further negotiations surrounding the director of the property department.

Even Rak, who only a month ago called reporters himself to inform them that he had “definitely decided to resign”, stopped talking. “I will neither confirm nor deny anything. Don’t be angry, I’m not authorized to communicate with the media,” however, he replied to questions now.

As the Neovlivni.cz website reported on Wednesday, Rak meanwhile sent a letter to the head of the municipality, Kubelko, in which he accused the advisor to councilor Zábranský of allegedly providing information to the opposing party in a million-dollar lawsuit over property. And this from an internal meeting that took place in Rak’s presence more than three weeks after Rak offered his resignation. Both Zábranský and his advisor Petr Beneš deny wrongdoing.