The resignation of Juraj Celler from the position of the chairman of the Office of Geodesy, Cartography and Cadastre (ÚGKK) of the Slovak Republic is not enough, according to the opposition party SaS and the PS movement, as inference of responsibility for the cyber attack on the office’s systems. They demand political responsibility on the part of several ministers and Prime Minister Robert Fico (Smer-SD). This follows from the opinions provided to TASR by the spokesperson of the SaS Ondrej Šprlák and Samuel Chrťan from the media department of the PS.
“Political responsibility cannot be borne by an official. This is the largest cyber attack on a state in living memory. Robert Fico, Matúš Šutaj Eštok and Richard Raši (both Hlas-SD, note TASR) despite this poor attempt to cover up the problem, they know very well that they will not succeed,” said Ján Hargaš (PS), a member of the National Council (NR) of the Slovak Republic. He added that the end of the cadastre chief’s tenure comes too late.
Hargaš recalled that coalition politicians initially ignored the hacker attack on the cadastre, then, according to him, lied that the cadastre was already starting to work and to this day, they “didn’t tell the public the truth about what sensitive data the hackers got hold of and what they did with it”. He declared that the entire government bears responsibility for the incident.
According to the SaS party, the minister who nominated Celler for the position – Minister of Agriculture Richard Takáč (Smer-SD) – must bear the consequences for the situation at the cadastre.
“The cadastre is still not fully functional and complicates the situation not only for citizens, but also for municipalities. Despite the fact that the government could dismiss the head of the cadastre immediately, we listened to excuses for almost two weeks that no one was to blame for anything. We also called on the prime minister to take more vigorous steps, the one who recorded the video of Juraj Celler’s appeal so that the head of the cadastre would resign himself. The government coalition is absurdly absolving itself of responsibility, instead of taking decisive action, we are witnessing obfuscation and non-transparent information to the public,” said the chairman of SaS, Branislav Gröhling.
At the same time, according to NR SR deputy Alojz Hlina (SaS), the party considers the information that Celler was supposed to communicate with hackers to be absurd. He emphasized that the Minister of the Environment Tomáš Taraba (SNS nominee) has no where to get this information.
The chairman of the ÚGKK SR Celler resigned from his post on Monday. The prime minister called for his resignation in connection with the hacker attack on the cadastre information system. Taraba also spoke about the fact that he should resign. In Sunday’s (January 19) talk show TA3 V politike, he stated that Celler should have corresponded with hackers, which the previous head of the ÚGKK SR denied. The government cabinet appointed Celler to the position last year at the suggestion of the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Takača.
