Defence Minister Gajdos Joins Slovak National Party

Oponice, December 9 (TASR) – Defence Minister Peter Gajdos, who had acted at the helm of the ministry as a Slovak National Party (SNS) nominee, on Saturday joined the party as a member, SNS leader and Parliamentary Chairman Andrej Danko said after a broader SNS Presidium session in Oponice (Nitra region) on Saturday.

“I’m happy that he’s standing with me in his career, I value himn. It isn’t a mistake that a soldier has become defence minister,” said Danko, who then went on to praise the thorough inventory of military stocks carried out under Gajdos in response to the disappearance of some ammo as detected earlier this year.

“I’ll be frank here, it wasn’t SNS that lost something from the stocks, but those geniuses who commissioned private companies and private security services with various links to guard the ammunition warehouses,” said Danko, adding that if some figures keep irritating him, he’ll begin talking about these links.

The Defence Ministry one day earlier announced that it had completed the first ever fully comprehensive inventory of the munitions stored at its warehouses in Slovakia and discovered that listed items were missing, including 80 RG-F1 hand grenades, 11 anti-tank RPG-75s, 40 URG-86 hand grenades, one piece of ammo for an infantry combat vehicle (BVP), more than 200,000 5.6-Long bullets and hundreds of other types of ammo.

“This was the first ever physical check of ammunition in which we went through 100 percent of the warehouses and 100 percent of the stocks – every item of ammo piece by piece,” said Gajdos, adding that in the past the military checked 20 percent of ammunition annually.