Slovak president using government aircraft for private trips

Unlike his predecessors, President Andrej Kiska appears to have been using a special government aircraft for private purposes. This was reported in the Pravda daily in a Tuesday story. Kiska has been accused of flying from Bratislava to Poprad (Prešov region) in the government jet to visit his family, states the daily, noting at the same time that nobody is willing to reveal just how many times this has taken place. The President's Office, the Interior Ministry and Poprad airport have all been contacted by the daily about this, but no information has been forthcoming. The daily has calculated that this has been a regular occurrence, with weekly flights over the past nine months since Kiska became president costing Slovak taxpayers more than €200,000. When appearing on the RTVS television show 'Five Minutes to Twelve' on Sunday, the president claimed that Interior Minister Robert Kaliňák in fact urged him to use the aircraft. "He [Kalinak] asked me [to do this] because the plane and the pilots must be in the air sometimes", stated the president. Interior Ministry spokesman Petar Lazarov has confirmed that the aircraft is indeed supposed to spend a certain amount of time in flight, even if this means travelling without passengers. He stated that Kaliňák wanted Kiska to use the plane for working purposes, however, and didn't say anything about private trips. An unnamed former state official who was associated with the President's Office has pointed out that the president has the right to use the Jak-40 jet aircraft for private purposes, adding that this is more of a question of morals and ethics. Former Slovak presidents Rudolf Schuster and Ivan Gašparovič have let it be known that they refrained from using the aircraft for such purposes due to the cost. Gašparovič's former spokesman Marek Trubač told the daily that Gašparovič usually used the car assigned to him when travelling privately. Meanwhile, Schuster noted that his family lived in Košice, but he always made his own arrangements when visiting them and never used the government aircraft even once for such journeys. Speaking on the aforementioned TV show, Kiska stated that the most expensive mode of travel for a public official is actually by train because of the necessary security arrangements along the entire route.