Sulik Sacks Slovak Trade Inspectorate Director after Two Decades

Sulik Sacks Slovak Trade Inspectorate Director after Two Decades

Bratislava, July 22 (TASR) – Economy Minister Richard Sulik (Freedom and Solidarity/SaS) on Wednesday dismissed Slovak Trade Inspectorate (SOI) director Nadezda Machutova, who has occupied the post for nearly two decades, replacing her with Marcel Suchar.


Sulik, an economic liberal by conviction, said that while he has good relations with Machutova and hadn’t planned to sack her, he decided that she must go as they have incompatible notions of how inspections should be carried out. He said that he was unhappy about inspectors “educating” traders with fines for “utterly stupid regulations”.

“I strongly reject fining traders €300 for having their terms and conditions of purchase and returns policy only on the internet and not in the shop, or fining someone only because they failed to label footwear as sports trainers. This is crazy and it must stop,” said Sulik, adding that the SOI should respond only to people’s complaints, leaving traders without any issues with customers alone.

Suchar has worked in several law firms and also as a court distrainer.