How the Wife of an SDS MP Won a Tender Overnight
Uroš Škerl Kramberger
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In early September 2022, the wife of SDS MP Tomaž Lisec, then still employed in the public sector, opened a part-time sole proprietorship. Just a few days later, she signed a consultancy contract with the Rudolfovo Institute, which had been established by the government of Janez Janša (SDS). The sequence of events raises suspicions of a possible pre-arranged cooperation.
Visualisation: Mashoni
Scientists rarely take to the streets with their demands, but on 6 April 2022 they had had enough, organizing a protest in front of the University of Ljubljana against the degradation of the research process and the interference of the authorities in the scientific sphere. Nearly two hundred people gathered in support of the cause.
At that time, the government of Janez Janša, nearing the end of its mandate, was planning to channel the budget for science into three newly established scientific institutions. Among these was the Rudolfovo Public Research Institute in Novo Mesto, where it appointed Borut Rončević, one of the SDS party’s central ideologues, as acting director.
The name of the institute carries ironic overtones – an evocative reminiscence of Rudolf IV of Habsburg, the medieval duke who, as a feudal lord, wilfully founded Rudolfswerth or Rudolfovo, today’s city of Novo Mesto. The Janša government likewise set up the Rudolfovo science institute arbitrarily, without clearly justifying the reasons for its establishment and without consulting the scientific community.
At the protest, according to STA, Gregor Anderluh, President of the Coordination of Research Institutes of Slovenia (Kosris), said that the government was supporting institutions that did not have a clear work programme or noteworthy achievements. »We must ask ourselves whether we are acting rationally and responsibly in the distribution of what are already small public funds,« was likewise critical Gregor Majdič, then President of the Rectors’ Conference and University of Ljubljana Rector.
Scientists questioned why the government had allocated just over €5.2 million for the initial two years of operation to a new institution without any existing professional credentials. The Higher Education Union of Slovenia warned of corruption suspicions marring the establishment of the institute, while calculating that Rudolfovo would immediately become the sixth largest institute in the country.
The magic of September 2022
The Rudolfovo Institute started out with just a handful of employees, and then by late 2022 recruited 26 people. During this period, they were still working without a clear research orientation, but in September they carried out an ambiguous selection procedure for a business consultancy service provider and hastily signed a contract with a sole proprietor, Nataša Lisec, wife of long-time SDS MP Tomaž Lisec.
Mrs. Lisec, a lawyer then employed as a senior adviser for public procurement at the Krško Municipality, had opened her own part-time sole proprietorship just ten days before the contract was signed. A month later, on 14 October 2022, she already issued her first invoice to Rudolfovo for €2389.43 according to the Erar official public finance database. By the end of 2023 she had earned more than €15,000 working for the institution.
Rudolfovo claims to have chosen the sole proprietor due to her past experience in the public sector, and because of her »established expertise«. At the beginning of September 2022, Rončević was namely succeeded by a new director, Janez Povh, who had been familiar with the entrepreneur from the period between 2008 and 2014, when he was Dean of the Faculty of Information Studies in Novo Mesto where Mrs. Lisec was a lawyer.
»Her experience and professionalism led to her being invited to participate. The choice proved to be highly economical, as it provided us with excellent legal support until we set up our own legal department,« explains the Rudolfovo Institute.
According to the Faculty’s online archive she conducted various tasks there, including managing a visiting senior lecturer project, managing a call for applications, and participating in training abroad.
In the selection procedure, only one other invited bidder submitted a bid – the Novo Mesto Development Centre, whose director, Franci Bratkovič, was at the time also the Chairman of the Rudolfovo Board of Directors. The two invited law firms did not respond to the tender.
The selection of the service provider was timely and took place in two phases. On 5 September, Nataša Lisec opened a part-time sole proprietorship, and the following day Rudolfovo sent a request for proposals to the potential providers – but not to her. The bidding deadline was six days.
But Rudolfovo did not wait for the deadline to expire. They state that after just three days, it had been estimated there would be no bids and so they repeated the request for proposals and also sent it to the newly minted proprietor, Nataša Lisec.
Rudolfovo’s criterion for bid selection was the lowest bid price. Mrs. Lisec submitted her bid fee of €22 per hour less than six hours after receiving the invitation. Three days later, the Novo Mesto Development Centre also submitted a bid, but at the price of €30 per hour.
»The most economically advantageous offer was selected, from a suitably qualified person able to provide the relevant knowledge and experience in the context of setting up the processes of the newly established public institution within the given timeframe,« explained the Rudolfovo Institute. The contract was signed on 15 September 2022.
Bratkovič, who submitted a competitive bid as the Director of the Novo Mesto Development Centre (Razvojni center Novo mesto), told Oštro that the Rudolfovo board, which he chaired at the time, was not competent for the selection process. His explanations and those of Rudolfovo show that the sole proprietor Nataša Lisec was selected by the institute’s management.
Sitting on two chairs
The Institute explained to Oštro that the sole proprietor had provided them with business consultancy services, including drafting internal acts, advising on recruitment procedures, reviewing documentation, and providing legal opinions. She also prepared the documentation for all major public procurement contracts and managed their procedures.
The Municipality of Krško confirmed that Nataša Lisec, then a public servant working in procurement, had obtained authorization from her superior to carry out additional part-time activities, but not permission to provide advice and support in public procurement procedures.
The municipality only found out last week, after receiving questions from the Oštro press, that she had been providing these services despite lack of explicit permission. They explained that Mrs. Lisec had no longer been employed by them for over a year, and that had they been aware of this information during her employment, they would have assessed the situation and taken action if necessary.
The Civil Servant Code of Conduct stipulates that a civil servant may not perform functions or engage in any gainful or non-profit activity incompatible with the due performance of their public duties. When compatibility between public duties and particular activities is unclear, the civil servant is obliged to consult their superior.
Nejc Brezovar from the Ljubljana Faculty of Public Administration explained to Oštro that the head of an institution takes measures to avoid conflicts of interest and decides whether to exclude an official from certain activities or allow their conduct. »Therefore, the head must be aware of pertaining facts, and it is the duty of the official to inform them of the possible existence of a conflict of interest.« He stressed that every official must be alert to these circumstances, and must not use their office or the information they acquire in the workplace to pursue unauthorised private interests.
Mrs. Lisec has not issued any more invoices to the Rudolfovo Institute this year, the final one having been sent last December according to Erar. The public institute explained to Oštro that they have discontinued working with her since the start of this year, as they now have their own legal department. Since June last year, she has been employed at the Krško Nuclear Power Plant in the field of public procurement, specifically import procurement.
Intense workload
Part-time sole proprietor Nataša Lisec submitted her bid to the Rudolfovo Institute for business consultancy services at an hourly fee of €22.
Oštro’s conversion of the payments into working hours shows that in the first month of operation of her after-hours business, she did over 108 hours of work for Rudolfovo. Over the next two months, until Christmas 2022, she worked another 209 hours, or an average more than four hours a day, including weekends and public holidays. In addition, she was employed full-time as a municipal clerk during that period.
According to Erar, the Rudolfovo Institute was the only public sector client of part-time sole proprietor Nataša Lisec.
Erar screenshot with a list of all invoices issued by sole proprietor Nataša Lisec to Rudolfovo.
During its first two years of operation, Rudolfovo received a hefty sum from the state budget. The initial flat rate of €5.2 million for a two-year period was reduced with the change of government, but the state still paid out over €3 million to the institution in 2022 and 2023.
Andrej Pančur, the current president of Kosris, the Coordination of Research Institutes, told Oštro that they are advocating for the introduction of more precise legal regulation governing the establishment of new scientific institutes. Two years ago, they already expressed concerns about the unconditional allocation of stable funding to newly established public research institutes.
The draft amendments to the Act on Scientific Research and Innovation, which have been in inter-ministerial coordination since the beginning of the summer, now define in detail the conditions under which new public scientific institutions can receive state funding.
Since last October, Franci Bratkovič is no longer Chairman or member of the Rudolfovo Board of Directors. However, he assured Oštro that the establishment of a new public research institute in Novo Mesto was justified. He considered it necessary to strengthen regional research centres and decentralise the Slovenian scientific sphere, which is overly concentrated in Ljubljana.
Bratkovič said that the establishment of the Rudolfovo Institute had taken six years to prepare, and that it was »based on a very strong conceptual foundation, it was not conjured out of thin air«. One of the organisational units of the Novo Mesto Development Centre moved there as well, reassigning some of its staff to the new public institution.
In its first annual report, the list of Rudolfovo’s achievements included scientific papers published by fresh recruits, even though they had probably carried out their research beforehand. Following a similar principle they also listed four patent applications.
This year, the Novo Mesto institute is still receiving budget funding, but the government has cut it by a fifth compared to last year, to a maximum of €1.6 million.
Nataša Lisec did not reply to a question whether she provided services for any other client in 2022 and 2023. Judging by the number of invoices issued to the Rudolfovo Institute and published on Erar, she probably had no other clients at the time.