Havel officially accepts resignation of Czech Statistics Office's Marie Bohata

President Vaclav Havel has officially accepted the resignation of the head of the Czech Statistics Office Marie Bohata. Mrs Bohata resigned on Friday after the statistics body of the European Union - Eurostat - concluded that her office bore partial responsibility for a gross miscalculation of last year's economic indicators. Eurostat said the Czech Statistics Office and the Czech Customs Authority were both responsible for the release of erroneous foreign trade deficit figures for the third quarter of 2002. The accounting error - involving a sum of well over 1 billion dollars - forced a total re-evaluation of the Czech economy, including public finance and interest rates. Meanwhile, unofficial sources have told the Czech news agency CTK that Mrs Bohata's post will most likely be filled by a former deputy at the Statistics Office Jan Fischer.