Minister Huliak Calls for Chief Veterinary Officer Chudy to Be Ousted

Bratislava, April 15 (TASR) - Measures aimed against the spread of foot-and-mouth disease were issued based on the one-sided opinions of Chief Veterinary Officer Martin Chudy, going beyond EU regulations, and this will have significant negative consequences for Slovak food production, said Tourism and Sport Minister Rudolf Huliak (Independent) at a press conference on Tuesday, calling for Agriculture Minister Richard Takac (Smer-SD) to dismiss Chudy. "I'm calling on Minister Takac to oust this individual immediately because we can't even begin to imagine the devastating impact his actions could have on the Slovak cattle industry," said Huliak. According to him, Chudy made decisions regarding measures without taking into account the opinions of other vets. The minister also criticised the delay in implementing necessary steps. "There was a requirement to secure the borders, particularly regarding transport, and here we found significant evidence of this man's failure," stated Huliak. Following the detection of the outbreak in Hungary, movement at the borders should have been restricted, vehicles should have been disinfected, but, according to Huliak, Chudy didn't issue the relevant measures until March 14. Huliak sees a problem in the killing of non-infected cattle. "The final straw was the culling of heavily pregnant cows — 800 of them in Dolny Stal [Trnava region]. I believe this was, quite literally, an act of treason against Slovakia's food self-sufficiency and the agricultural sector as a whole. I can't even begin to imagine the far-reaching consequences this will have," added Huliak. The minister joined several opposition MPs in criticising the measures, but added that the group of MPs who, along with him, got into Parliament on the Slovak National Party's (SNS) list of candidates will continue to support the government of Premier Robert Fico (Smer-SD). lin/df