STA, 18 February 2021 - The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) is conducting 29 house searches around Slovenia on Thursday as it is investigating an EU-funded tourism project, including at the home of former Agriculture Minister Aleksandra Pivec.
Fourteen persons and one legal entity are suspected of fraud involving EU funds and of abuse of office, while no-one has been detained, the NBI said.
The unlawful gain from the suspected crimes, which carry a prison sentence between one and eight years, is over EUR 100,000.
Pivec said in a written statement police had arrived at her home this morning investigating the Strategic Development Innovation Partnership Tourism (SRIPT) case.
She was invited to take part in the project in 2017 while serving as a state secretary at the Office for Slovenians Abroad, and received EUR 35,000 gross for her contribution.
Auditors meanwhile questioned the amount of work she put in and even her copyright, but she has denied any wrongdoing on several occasions.
"Only a completed independent investigation will finally confirm that I did nothing unlawful as part of SRIPT," she said today.
The SRIPT project by the Chamber of Tourism and Hospitality was eligible for EUR 390,000 from the European Regional Development Fund.
In mid-2019, the Economy Ministry reported suspicion of fraud and forgery to the prosecution after going through co-funding contracts for the project.
But the ministry apparently did not file a criminal complaint against Pivec.
According to news portal Necenzurirano, criminal complaints were filed only against Klavdija Perger, a former director of the Tourism and Hospitality Chamber, Boštjan Brumen, the dean of the Brežice-based Faculty of Tourism, and against Maja Uran Maravič, a lecturer at the Turistica tourism school from Portorož.
SRIPT was designed to bring together different stakeholders in business and R&D, and boost investment in sustainable tourism development projects.
Pivec's job on it terminated a day before she became agriculture, forestry and food minister in September 2018.
She hopes that once the investigation is over, "the media lynching and unjustified allegations" against her, which she said appeared when she became DeSUS leader in January 2020 to remove her from the political scene, would finally end.
