Coalition Partners Set up Mutual Help Fund for Lives Hit by Coronavirus
Bratislava, April 1 (TASR) – The coalition partners have agreed that they’ll set up a Mutual Assistance Fund that will be dedicated to individual people whose lives have been affected by novel coronavirus, Prime Minister Igor Matovic (OLaNO) stated on Wednesday.
Coalition MPs, ministers and other people cooperating with the Government will contribute to the fund. Matovic stated that he himself will hand over his whole salary.
“It’s a joint decision taken after an agreement with all the coalition parties. It’s not an initiative of a single party or of the Government Office. It’s the common decision by us, as well as our coalition MPs. We’d be glad if people from outside the governing coalition, including opposition MPs, decided to contribute to the fund as well, and I’m calling on them to do so from this place,” said Matovic.
With this gesture the coalition wants to show the public that politics and politicians aren’t cut off. “And that we as coalition parties do think about people, either by laws or by the aforementioned individual assistance,” said the prime minister.
Matovic specified that the Mutual Assistance Fund will be voluntary. “We have an agreement within the OLaNO caucus that all our MPs will contribute to the fund. To serve as a model, I’m giving up the whole of my prime minister’s salary,” he added.
We Are Family leader Boris Kollar pointed to the fact that the salaries of people working as civil servants, managers, prosecutors and judges are derived from MPs’ salaries. He views the fund as the best, fastest and most concrete assistance for families and people who find themselves in a difficult situation. “A list will be created from which the feelings of personal solidarity of every single MP and minister, how much they are willing to help ordinary people, will be evident,” said Kollar.
According to For the People vice-chair Veronika Remisova, this tool is a fund of solidarity that the state is unable to create with laws or any other means of legislation. “The fund also provides for a kind of flexibility in terms of rapid and specific assistance so that we’ll be able to address the cases that need it the most,” she added.