Speech of the President of the Czech Republic, Mr Miloš Zeman
Seminar - 20th Anniversary of the SAO, Senate of the Parliament of the CR, 25.7.2013
Dear President of the Senate,
Dear President of the Supreme Audit Office,
Dear Vice-President,
Thank you for your invitation. I am delighted to be here.
I shall not bore you with a long speech. I would only like to say a few small things.
First, I am very pleased that, after the long period that the SAO was without leadership, a sensible political agreement has been reached and I was able to appoint both the President and the Vice-President.
Although they are or have been elected as MPs for different political parties, I would to remind both of them of a phenomenon known as Becket´s syndrome. Becket´s syndrome is where if you become a head of whatever institution, you begin to act in the interests of that institution, regardless of your past history. After all, Thomas Becket, being a favourite of King Henry, was made archbishop, and there never was a greater fighter for the Church than Becket. That is why it is called Becket´s syndrome.
And I would like you to take Becket´s syndrome to heart and become those at the head of the Supreme Audit Office who defend the holy right, which Norbert Wiener expressed as the right of feedback. This means the right to conduct audits, and even to scrutinise things that, unfortunately, are not being scrutinised today. That is why I would like you to know that I will be pleased to support any law that will expand, to a reasonable degree, the powers of the Supreme Audit Office, of course assuming that the Supreme Audit Office will exercise these powers effectively.
The President has acquainted me with the previous annual reports of the SAO, and I am sad to note that the number of criminal complaints lodged by this institution was somewhat low, in the range of three to five over an entire year I believe.
Just like the speakers before me, I would also like to bring up the memory of Lubomír Voleník. When I was Prime Minister, I worked with him for four years. He was from a different political party than me, but you would not be able to tell. He was as sharp as a knife and during sessions of my government, he submitted proposals for criminal complaints that the government supported 100% of the time. I therefore sincerely hope that the new leadership of the Supreme Audit Office follows Lubomír Voleník´s example.
My closing word, citing Wiener again, is as follows: "A system without control feedback degenerates." I am afraid that we are seeing such degeneration today and that one of the causes is a lack of control feedback and a lack of power on the part of the Supreme Audit Office.
I hope that the next time we meet we will no longer have to speak about degeneration.
Thank you for your attention.