Jana Průšková
Prize for Courage 2015
50 000 CZK
Matter of Principle
The story of Jana Průšková accentuates principles, values, ethics and moral. It is a story about misuse of power and a strange approach taken by the bodies participating in criminal proceedings.
We all know that sadly, abuse of official powers and financial assets routinely occur in big public institutions as well as small municipalities and various organizations, managing assets that often transcend the public domain. We all are worse for it, but we can change the situation. All it takes is cast as strong a light as possible on concrete cases. But it also often takes a lot of courage to do it. One example is the case of Jana Průšková, who some years ago became a manager for the Friends of Severáček.
The Friends of Severáček, or KPS, is a nonprofit organization that defends and promotes the interests of the members of the Severáček children’s choir, a well-known and successful ensemble based in Liberec. KPS organizes the choir’s activities, concerts and other projects. For this purpose the KPS accepts financial donations and has received allowances from the Ministry of Culture and the City of Liberec (amounting to some 400,000 CZK in 2010). Severáček accepts donations from parents and is supported by sponsors. The KPS’s annual budget is about 1.2 million CZK.
Jana Průšková had worked for the Friends of Severáček since 2008. During her employment, she found out that the KPS NGO’s finances were not in complete order and there were dramatic discrepancies in the KPS treasury and accounting books. Jan Průšková duly alerted the KPS management to the irregularities and was set to put them right. However, this was not to the liking of some KPS board members and the choir’s conductor. Rather than put things right in the economic management and books, KPS decided it no longer needs her services. J. Průšková was fired and her position was cancelled: all this within less than one month.
Her sacking was followed by intimidation and naked threats against her.
Why was the KPS financial management failed?
Jana Průšková discerned from readily available documents that the KPS nonprofit organization pursued an “’unusual” method of economic management, which enabled certain persons to siphon off money. Thus, only half of the proceeds from the sale of tickets to Severáček concerts were declared and entered in the books, while the other half of them was concealed in a “slush fund”. It functioned as a kind of cash desk to finance the private, unofficial and internal purposes of the KPS management. Certain members of the KPS were compensated for their taxi and public transport fares, and enjoyed various “free” dinners and undeclared extra bonuses. These undeclared private expenses and incomes were recorded in what was called the Black Diary. In an effort to put the books in order, Jana Průšková exposed an unusual, twisted and truly “dark” method of “managing” funds intended for children and their concerts. That exposed her to conflicts, intimidation, threats and ultimately sacking, at the hands of the KPS management.
Having failed to persuade the KPS management to order improvements in the Severáček funding, Jana Průšková defied threats and forwarded documents proving a dubious book-keeping and embezzlements to the police. At the same time she contested the termination of her contract with the KPS in a criminal complaint. That pushed her case further, but alas, not into the spheres where law and justice reign supreme, but into the world of strange practices of several bodies participating in criminal proceedings. In this case, the attitude of courts was legally as astounding and twisted as that of the KPS management. Although the court acknowledged that not everything in the “unofficial” KPS books was in order, police eventually shelved Jana Průšková’s complaint. Actually the courts continue to quietly ignore to this day the economic practices of persons implicated in the Severáček KPS slush fund in an effort to sweep the whole episode under the carpet and away from the public eyes, as soon as possible.
Jana Průšková’s revelations about the KPS slush fund have not exposed a multimillion-crown theft. But like in similar cases highlighted by the NFPK, it is a matter of principle. We are talking about the exposure of twisted manners and manipulated, dubious economic policies on the part, in this case, of a nonprofit organization the main mission of which is to assist the artistic development of members of a children’s choir. The fact that the embezzlement of funds by the KPS was a premeditated effort for the benefit of individual members of the management is at once disquieting and despicable. The failure of the respective bodies to act when alerted to the illegal conduct of the KPS serves both as a warning and an example of widespread corruption in public institutions and legal bodies.
Corruption is derived from the Latin word corrumpere and has also other meanings, such as damage, destruction and distortion…
Jana Průšková tried to expose and put right a twisted way of handing money intended for a children’s choir. She clashed with twisted ways in both the management of that ensemble and the bodies participating in criminal proceedings. Moreover, Police investigators completely ignored the fact that asset stripping like in the KPS also reeks of tax evasion, to tell the least.
Jana Průšková did not lose heart and filed a remedy appeal to the Supreme Court of the Czech Republic.
Jana Průšková´s story - further information
Interview with Jana Průšková (in Czech only)
