Financial Committee Head Kamenicky Set to Be New Finance Minister
Bratislava/Kosice, April 9 (TASR) – Smer-SD party leader Robert Fico will propose that MP Ladislav Kamenicky should become the new finance minister at a party presidium session due to be held next Monday (April 15) or Tuesday (April 16).
Fico said this during a joint briefing held with Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini (Smer-SD) in Kosice on Tuesday. Until the new minister is appointed, the ministry will be run by Pellegrini. The new minister should assume the post after Easter, said Fico.
The finance minister post will become vacant when current Finance Minister Peter Kazimir takes over the role of Slovakia’s central bank (NBS) governor. Kazimir is due to offer his resignation to President Andrej Kiska at 9.30 a.m. on Thursday (April 11). Fico noted that the president can’t refuse to appoint a new minister proposed by the prime minister.
Pellegrini expects the party presidium to okay Kamenicky’s nomination for the finance minister post. He views him as a competent person and is looking to cooperate with him. Kamenicky is head of the parliamentary financial affairs committee and, at the same time, serves as one of the chairs of Smer-SD’s Bratislava district organisation. “None of us has any doubt that he’s a man able to manage this post in the way we’ve been accustomed to in the case of the current finance minister,” stated Fico.
“He’s a person I know personally and with whom I’ve already had the honour to cooperate. I think he’s a man who’s ready and capable of assuming such an important post in the Government in terms of his professional skills,” stated Pellegrini, who described the performance of the ministry to date as excellent. He believes, therefore, that it will function smoothly until the new minister is appointed.
[It was reported earlier in the day that sources close to the Government Office had indicated that Pellegrini would like to see European Commissioner and presidential election runner-up Maros Sefcovic become the new finance minister, but the Government Office declined to answer TASR’s questions concerning this matter. – ed. note]
