The Karlovy Vary Region is at risk of losing grants for the Becher Villa

Karlovy Vary - The Karlovy Vary region is once again threatened with having to return over 62 million crowns for the reconstruction of the Becherova Villa. The Regional Council for Cohesion Northwest sent the region a termination of the grant agreement, just before the ten-year validity of the contract was to expire. However, the region considers the termination to be unfounded and wants to contest it, said governor Petr Kubis (ANO) to ČTK.

The Karlovy Vary region has already received a payment order stating that it had to return 62 million crowns in grants from ROP Northwest. The reason was that one of the bidders for the contract submitted false references. However, the Ministry of Finance eventually canceled the payment order. Now, for the same reasons, the regional council wants to terminate the contract.

"I must say that this termination surprised us very much, as the contract was supposed to expire on August 30 after ten years. We find it to be a below-the-belt move, and we even believe that the chairman of the regional council did not have the proper authority for this and that the regional council should have convened and decided on it," said Governor Kubis.

The regional council, as the grant provider, terminated the contract because it believes that the grant recipient provided false information during a review of the public procurement process conducted on October 12, 2009, thus meeting the grounds for termination of the contract. However, according to the arguments of the Karlovy Vary region, which were also accepted by the ministry in the same matter, it is not within the powers of the region to verify whether participants in the tender provide all information truthfully. According to Kubis, the region was misled in exactly the same way as the grant provider.

Due to disputes over the grant for the first phase of the reconstruction of the Becherova Villa, the Karlovy Vary region has not yet received payment for the second part, amounting to about 11 million crowns. And because the project is still not formally completed, the region is limited in its possibilities for repairs, for example.

Meanwhile, the reconstruction of the Becherova Villa took place from 2009 to 2011. It was divided into two phases and cost 88.7 million crowns, of which 77.6 million crowns were to come from the grant.