BRATISLAVA, March 12, (WEBNOVINY) – Railway companies could possibly go belly-up unless the Transport Ministry initiated their revitalization, Transport Minister Jan Figel has announced on air of the Slovak Radio in the Saturday Dialogues program. “It is not difficult to trigger a bankruptcy, for instance, in the railway company Cargo; that indebtedness reaches eighty percent,” he noted. Figel asserts that the railway firms grapple with debts and overemployment. The current situation in the three state-run rail firms has not originated over past years; the accumulated debt is a twenty-year problem because the state made some promises but failed to fulfill its commitments, according to the minister. The competitiveness of the railway companies in relation to road transport and surrounding international transport has been decaying. These losses must no more accrue and therefore the adoption of the stabilization program has been inevitable, he reasons.
Opposition SMER-SD leader Robert Fico said in the debate that the revitalization measures, which will result in more expensive train tickets and dismissal of employees, are drastic. “We reduced the number of staffers in the rail freight transport by 22 percent and this step was very balanced; it concerned particularly those retiring,” he argued. The Cabinet should handle the rail firms as strategic property that needs to be upgraded. Fico’s Cabinet could afford to subsidize the companies because the country reported solid economic growth that time. “We sought financial means and found them because we had economic growth,” Fico boasted. At present, he would use the money allocated in the Transport Operational Program to cope with the problems.
Figel countered that Cargo was unable to handle the subsidies and the funds just flew through the company. “When your managers left this company, they received unbelievable, unbelievable golden parachutes,” he fired at Fico. Another trouble was that the transportation on rail tracks in Slovakia was the most expensive in the European Union. The economic performance is now recovering after the ministry reduced fees for the use of railway infrastructure by two-thirds. Figel also mentioned a national program, currently being prepared by the Labor Ministry that should help the to-be-dismissed railway workers find a new job.
SITA