News

A court of arbitration, part of the Czech Chamber of Commerce, has ordered the building firm Metrostav to complete Prague’s Blanka tunnel complex within five months. The court also said the city of Prague had to pay 4.04 billion crowns to the firm. The decision came months after work on the controversial tunnel was halted last December over disputes between the company and Prague City Hall. A Metrostav spokesman said the firm would resume work as soon as it received the payment while Prague Mayor Tomáš Hudeček said the city would pay the required sum. However, the construction company has in the meantime demanded the city pay another billion crowns; the court of arbitration will deal with the latest petition in June. The Blanka tunnel, designed to channel traffic from the city centre, has been criticized as an overpriced and non-transparent project. Its total costs are expected to reach some 36 billion crowns.

The police chief of Uherské Hradiště, Bronislav Šabršula, is being investigated on suspicion of drink-driving, Czech Television reported on Friday. The police was alerted to the incident by another driver who reported that a vehicle ahead of him was manoeuvring dangerously on the road and its driver could be under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Police found the respective vehicle parked on the roadside with the police chief fast asleep behind the steering wheel. He refused a Breathalyzer and blood test and insisted that he had not driven the car but had merely moved to the driver’s seat after having had a row with the driver who had left him in the lurch. The car’s side mirror had been smashed.

The Labour and Social Affairs Ministry is proposing the return of a maternity grant for the birth of a second child to the tune of 10,000 crowns. Within its austerity programme the former centre-right government of Petr Nečas scrapped the state contribution for the birth of a second child, meaning that parents now only get one-off state support for the birth of their first child to the tune of 13,000 crowns. This sum is paid out to parents whose joint income does not exceed 2.4 times the minimum income. The proposal still needs to win approval in government and Parliament.

Police investigating the murder of three taxi drivers have asked potential witnesses to step forward. The murders all happened on the same day of the week and according to unconfirmed sources all three drivers were shot in the back of the head with the same weapon. In each case the killer is believed to have taken a taxi from the centre of Prague to the outskirts where he committed the murders. The case has spread fear among Prague taxi drivers some of whom are now armed. Others refuse to take passengers off the street only responding to calls from an operator.