Police charge two over government public contract

The anticorruption unit of the Czech police has charged two people over a public contract handed out by the Labour and Social Affairs Ministry last year, the news agency ČTK reported. The men, one of whom served as a ministry official, the other as a court-appointed expert, face charges of abuse of power and fraud, among others. Prosecutors say the men manipulated a tender to improve the system of welfare payments; if the deal had not been stopped by the anti-monopoly office, the state would suffer a loss of around one billion crowns, a spokesman for the prosecution said.