Few MPs are Willing to Discuss their Assets
Klara Škrinjar, Anuška Delić, Samo Demšar, Maja Čakarić, Uroš Škerl Kramberger, Meta Gantar, Nina Rozman, Matej Zwitter
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More than 42% of the current MPs have not declared to the Commission for the Prevention of Corruption any related companies that the Parliament is not allowed to do business with. Only 23% of the 88* MPs decided to cooperate at least partially with journalists, while the others remained silent or made excuses, claiming compliance with legal obligations.
Visualisation: Mashoni
Key findings:
With MPs’ assets, the Asset Detector now contains 760 new units.
MPs are less transparent than members of the government or state secretaries. Only 14% have provided Oštro with a copy of their asset declaration.
At the time of the investigation, as many as 47 related companies, institutes, or sole proprietors had not been reported to the Commission for the Prevention of Corruption. Some Members of Parliament addressed the irregularities after receiving questions from Oštro, ensuring that the relevant business entity was properly declared.
In the meantime, the Commission in February 2023 already drafted a proposal for legal amendments, aimed also at increasing public access and transparency of asset data, which currently remains in a drawer at the Ministry of Justice.
The Asset Detector has so far identified 1297 units of property belonging to members of the government, state secretaries, and MPs.
»I declare changes regarding my assets to the ‘Šumi Commission’ in accordance with the Integrity and Prevention of Corruption Act. This has been the case for the six years that I have been a member of Parliament, and will continue for the remainder of my term of office,« said Dejan Kaloh, SDS MP, who did not respond to journalists’ questions concerning, among others, his brother’s companies.
Mr. Kaloh’s position is shared by numerous other MPs, regardless of their political affiliation.
Many of them did not even answer our questions, whereas only a few made the effort to reply or give more substantive clarifications. In the SDS group thus, just one MP, Jožef Jelen, replied. He supplemented the journalists’ findings with the ownership of a used inflatable boat, adding that »everything else is fine«.
Nevertheless, journalists managed to identify 760 units of property owned by MPs or their close family members. Oštro’s Asset Detector is now expanded with 125 houses, 72 apartments, 109 forest plots and 294 other plots of land; of which 77 are real estate units located abroad, mostly in Croatia.
Vida Čadonič Špelič (NSi) (co-)owns by far the largest number of plots of land, especially when also considering the land of her close family members. A large portion of these were inherited, and are therefore not directly linked to the MP’s income.
We also discovered some unusual living styles. Certain MPs seem to consider their crop storage facility as a suitable abode. Over ten years ago, Andrej Kosi (SDS) and his family lived in an outbuilding, officially a »harvest depot«. He later changed the official use of the building, so that he and his family now live in a legalised homestead.
“Oštro’s Asset Detector is now expanded with 125 houses, 72 apartments, 109 forest plots and 294 other plots of land, of which 77 are real estate units located abroad, mostly in Croatia.”
According to the 2022 National Assembly election records, Miroslav Gregorič (Freedom Movement) has his permanent residence in an 18 square metre building in the forest above Radeče. Bojan Podkrajšek (SDS) has the same amount of living space according to Gurs data, with more than 100 square metres of unallocated space of unknown use belonging to the real estate unit in question.
Members of Parliament, the elected representatives of the people, are the group of political officials who have been the least open to cooperating with journalists of the Asset Detector project. Only 15% were willing to disclose their asset declarations, and even fewer, 10%, were willing to answer journalists’ questions related to their assets. Some exceptions among MPs were, on the contrary, highly cooperative.
When the project was first published in May 2023, fewer than a fifth of government members shared their asset declarations with the project team, and when it was published for the second time in January this year, a third of the state secretaries did so.
↓ Journalists discovered 760 assets
Using investigative and data journalism methods, the team identified and verified 760 assets owned by MPs. All the published data underwent several rounds of internal fact-checking before publication. The journalists also informed all the MPs of their findings and gave them the opportunity to correct or complete the data.
Twenty MPs confirmed, supplemented or corrected the information gathered by journalists, while the rest did not respond at all.
Thirteen MPs sent copies of their asset declarations to the journalists, 9 sent declarations of asset changes, 9 only replied to the questions, while 68 did not send their declarations or replied. Some of them claimed they had declared their assets to the anti-corruption commission as required by law.
A variety of assets
Apartment house owned by Meira Hot (top, yellow building on the right) and apartments rented out by the MP (bottom). Photo: Oštro and web screenshot
Meira Hot (SD) and her close relatives stand out among the MPs in terms of assed diversity.
Ms. Hot owns an apartment house in the historic centre of Piran, less than 200 metres from the Punta area, where she is a registered resident. The building contains four modern holiday apartments, ranging in size from 29 to 36 square metres, which the MP rents out.
The apartments are managed by her father, Mehmed Hot, who is a registered landlord. In the second week of September they could be rented via Booking.com for €155 per night.
Oštro asked Ms. Hot where she actually lives, given that all four of the apartments are available for renting. She has decided not to reply.
The MP’s brothers are entrepreneurs, owners of six companies registered in Portorož and Koper with activities ranging from financial services, brokerage and consultancy, to catering and the sale of construction materials. One of the companies owns several office premises in a large commercial and restaurant building in downtown Portorož.
Between 2004 and 2011, Meira Hot was the owner, and from 2006 to 2011 the director of a company later taken over by her brother, which went bankrupt in 2022. In 2010 she held a directorship in her other brother’s company, which is still in operation.
The wealth of Janez Janša (SDS), a politician with one of the longest and most distinguished careers, has raised many questions in the past regarding its origin and transparency. In 2013, for example, the CPC’s audit of the assets of parliamentary party chairmen found a disproportionate increase of at least €210,000 in his assets compared to the identified sources of his income and wealth.
According to information available to Oštro, Janša owns a family house near Velenje with more than three hectares of surrounding land and half of a 58.7 m2 apartment in Ljubljana. He owns a holiday home near Bovec with just over 6000 m2 of land, and another 2700 m2 of farmland near Grosuplje.
His immediate family owns the other half of the apartment in Ljubljana, another apartment in Tacen, as well as houses in Planina under Golica, and houses and several plots of land near Grosuplje.
Mr. Janša remains a minority investor in media linked to the SDS party. He owns close to one percent of the company Nova Hiša, which publishes the portal Nova24TV.
As recently as April last year, he also held five shares in NovaTV24.si, the broadcaster of the Nova24TV television channel. There is no more recent information as the company exchanged its registered shares for bearer shares in June last year. The owner of such shares is the person holding them, and they are therefore anonymous.
Dating in offshores
MP Aleksander Prosen Kralj (Freedom Movement)** is the only current member of Parliament who is confirmed to co-own a company registered in a tax haven – the US state of Delaware.
The MP’s company, Redcapy Inc., is the publisher of Hookd, a dating app. It promises to connect users with people sharing similar interests within a 50-metre radius, assisting them in chatting up strangers.
Redcapy was registered on the last day of March last year in Delaware, and its CEO is an acquaintance of the MP. According to their website, the company is a startup that is still looking for investors.
Mr. Prosen Kralj acquired a 50% stake in the business when it was established, and reported it to the Commission for the Prevention of Corruption at the end of April last year. In May this year he did not report any changes in his ownership stake in the forms for reporting asset changes to the CPC, which he submitted to journalists for viewing.
Prosen Kralj confirmed his co-ownership of Redcapy to journalists in September last year in the context of Oštro’s Zvezoskop project. However, the Asset Detector project is still waiting for clarifications regarding his acquaintance’s co-ownership in Redcapy, and the reasons for the company’s registration in Delaware.
To note, the company has been entered on the Parliament’s restricted list.
This year’s report by the University of Sussex on global financial networks shows that the US, with Delaware at the forefront, is the second most significant destination for the registration of shell companies, after the British Virgin Islands.
This is also confirmed in last year’s report by a French independent research laboratory, pointing out that Delaware is a favourite destination for setting up shell companies, while its tax laws have the characteristics of jurisdictions that facilitate tax evasion. The international consortium of investigative journalists warned already a decade ago of thousands of existing shell companies in Delaware, through which dishonest actors might launder money.
The end of the paper era
Monitoring the assets of public officials is within the domain of the Commission for the Prevention of Corruption (CPC). Officials are required to provide the CPC with information on their assets when they take office, and to report any changes in their assets. They are also required to provide the CPC, through the state body where they are employed, with information on business entities related to them.
The CPC enters these business entities on its list of entities subject to restrictions on doing business with the public sector, or more specifically with the body employing the respective official.
However, 37 MPs failed to do so, leaving at least 47 connected business entities missing from the list at the time of the publication. Some of them, such as Dean Premik (FM) and Žan Mahnič (SDS), addressed the irregularities after receiving Oštro’s questions, ensuring that the connected entity was subsequently included on the list.
The CPC confirmed to Oštro that the companies we had identified were not on the list of the Parliament’s business restrictions.
“»We have asked the National Assembly for clarification, and we will verify the circumstances of all the cases mentioned.«”
»We are concerned, but in light of certain recent media reports not really surprised, about the finding of the Asset Detector project that in the two years since the last Parliamentary elections, around 40% of MPs have not (yet) provided information to the competent authority about the business entities they or their family members are connected with,« says Maruša Babnik, Secretary General of Transparency International Slovenia.
Given the Asset Detector’s revelations, they suggest that the CPC »investigates the situation immediately, if it has not already done so« and take appropriate action, including fines in the event of non-reporting. The CPC should supplement the public data with the date of receipt, so that the public can verify whether an MP has complied with the legal deadlines for reporting.
»While we welcome the better-late-than-never approach, it is at the very least indicative of indifference, in this case on the part of MPs, to the measures taken to reduce corruption risks in Slovenia. The adoption of sectoral legislation, codes of ethics and similar acts is not sufficient if their letter and intent are not being diligently followed,« she warned.
Ms. Babnik supports the Asset Detector project, which she believes successfully demonstrates »how open data and the involvement of the media and civil society can make key contributions to strengthening the country’s detection and investigative capacity in the fight against corruption«.
“In light of the Asset Detector’s revelations, we suggest that the CPC investigate the situation immediately, if it has not already done so, and take appropriate action, including fines in the event of non-reporting.”
The CPC has stressed that the number of subjects whose assets they have to monitor is growing. At the end of 2022 there were 21,314 such individuals, compared to 22,685 at the end of last year.
After Oštro revealed last May that the assets of some 22,000 officials were being monitored by a single CPC employee, the Commission engaged two more. Today, the job is being performed by two persons, since the employment relationship of one expired in the meantime.
In its annual report, the CPC asserted that monitoring would be more effective and, above all, more comprehensive if, following the example of some foreign countries, an information system was set up that would allow automatic checks on the timeliness and correctness of the applications received, and would alert the Commission to any perceived discrepancies. This is also one of their long-term objectives.
This year, the system of electronic reporting of taxable persons will also be introduced for those bodies that still report data to the Commission in physical form. An e-reporting system for assets data has already been in place since 2021.
»The upgrade will therefore eliminate a large part of the paper-based procedures and further automate part of the process by the end of 2024,« they announced.
In addition, the CPC has drafted a proposal for legislative changes that would expand the public disclosure of information on the assets of public officials. It has been sent to the drafting body of the sectoral legislation, the Ministry of Justice.
However, the Ministry has no amendments to the Law on Integrity and Prevention of Corruption (ZIntPk) planned this year, so the proposal has been shelved for now.
They still believe that the current law already adequately defines the set of data to be reported by taxpayers to the CPC in electronic form, and also allows some personal data to be withheld from publication. »In practice, the applicable rules must be interpreted in a manner consistent with the constitution and in accordance with the purpose of the law.«
The publication of MPs’ asset data marks the end of the current phase of the Asset Detector project. The team collects data on the assets of political officials exclusively through investigative and data journalism methods. All the data already published will be updated by the journalists in the coming months, while the team has been working for a considerable time to secure funding to continue the project.
If you are aware of any assets of public officials that we have not yet identified and included in the database of politicians’ assets, you can help by sending us information at detektorpremozenja@ostro.si, and the editorial team will verify it. If journalists can confirm the information, these assets will be included in the database.
* Only 88 MPs were included in the analysis of cooperation with journalists, since after the election of Matej Tonin and Branko Grims to the European Parliament, their successors, Andrej Poglajen and Franc Medic, were only appointed on 5 September 2024. Meanwhile, their assets have been included in the database already.
** Update, 18. 9. 2024: After the publication of the article, MP Aleksander Prosen Kralj confirmed his co-ownership of Redcapy and the Hookd app. This company remains a startup project for which investors are still being sought.
Mr. Prosen Kralj elaborated that he and the co-owner chose the US state of Delaware to register the company because it is easier to find dating app investors on a foreign market, specifically in the US. Business subjects have less red tape to deal with in Delaware, and legal procedures are simpler as well. Prosen Kralj stressed that he and the co-owner of Redcapy did not intend to set up a shell company or carry out tax evasion.
They have found a foreign investor for the Hookd app, who provided a small startup grant in return for a 7% stake in the business. Mr. Prosen Kralj and his original business partner now each own 46.5% of the company.
Data verification: Žana Erznožnik, Nina Rozman, Meta Gantar, Uroš Škerl Kramberger, Klara Škrinjar