Police raid state’s nuclear waste storage agency

On Monday morning, police officers conducted a raid of the state’s Radioactive Waste Repository Authority, searching for documents. A supervising public prosecutor told news site Seznam Zprávy that five people and one business entity have been charged with negotiating advantages in public tenders.

According to website hlidacstatu.cz, the Radioactive Waste Repository Authority has concluded 626 contracts worth a total of CZK 7 billion in recent years. Seznam Zprávy writes that police officers are interested in the role that the organisation’s director Jan Prachař had in some tenders.

The Radioactive Waste Repository Authority is part of the Ministry of Industry and Trade. It has recently been in the public spotlight as the Czech government seeks to speed up the construction of a nuclear waste storage facility in order to adhere to the deadline in the EU’s taxonomy for sustainable activities.