SaS and PS: Cellar's Resignation Not Enough to Cover Responsibility for Attack

Bratislava, January 20 (TASR) - Juraj Celler's resignation from the post of chairman of the Geodesy, Cartography and Cadastre Office (UGKK) isn't enough in terms of demonstrating that responsibility for the cyber-attack on the office's information systems has been accepted, according to the opposition Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) and Progressive Slovakia (PS) parties, which want several ministers and Premier Robert Fico (Smer-SD) to accept political responsibility as well, according to statements provided to TASR by SaS spokesman Ondrej Sprlak and Samuel Chrtan of the PS media department on Monday. "A clerk cannot bear political responsibility. This is the biggest cyber-attack on the state in our living memory. Robert Fico, [Interior Minister] Matus Sutaj Estok and [Informatisation Minister] Richard Rasi (both Voice-SD) know very well that they won't be able to brush this under the carpet, despite their poor attempts to do so," stated MP Jan Hargas (PS), adding that the UGKK chief's resignation has come too late. Hargas noted that coalition politicians at first ignored the cyber-attack on the land registry office and then lied by claiming that UGKK was already starting to operate again. Meanwhile, to this day they "haven't told the public the truth about what sensitive data the hackers had access to and what they did with it". He stated that the whole government bears responsibility for the security incident. According to SaS, the minister who nominated Cellar for the post last year - Agriculture Minister Richard Takac (Smer-SD) - must also face the consequences for the situation at UGKK. "The land-registry office still isn't fully functional, which complicates the situation not only for the public, but also for local governments. Although the government could have dismissed the land-registry office head immediately, we heard excuses for almost two weeks, saying that no one was to blame. We also called on the premier to take more vigorous steps, but he instead recorded a video for Juraj Celler calling on him to resign of his own volition. The governing coalition is absolutely avoiding responsibility; instead of vigorous action we are witnessing obfuscation and the provision of non-transparent information to the public," stated SaS leader Branislav Groehling. According to MP Alojz Hlina (SaS), the party views information that Celler allegedly communicated with the hackers as absurd. He emphasised that Environment Minister Tomas Taraba (a SNS nominee) couldn't have received such information. UGKK chairman Celler stepped down from his post earlier on Monday. The premier called on him to resign in connection with the recent cyber-attack on the land registry office. Taraba also stated that Celler should step down, mentioning in a politics programme on TA3 on Sunday (January 19) that Celler had allegedly been communicating with the hackers. Celler has denied this. ko/df