This Bud's on you, Mr. Bendl

It's not often that we agree with the Reds, but Communist Party Chair Vojtěch Filip probably hit the bull's eye with regard to Budvar. He wrote in Právo today that Agriculture Minister Petr Bendl has put together some strange oversight bodies to prove what he wants at Budvar, namely that there's a big mess at the state-owned brewery. Speaking on OVM on Sun., Bendl deflected criticism of sending in HZ Consult to do the audit. It was picked in a legitimate tender for doing work at the ministry before he took office, he said. But he didn't explain why his handpicked member of the Budvar supervisory board, Tomáš Jindra, should head the audit team. An audit of this type should be completely independent. Defending the internal practices of any state-owned company is risky business, but it's probably safe to agree with Filip that in this case the behavior of the state is more dubious than that of the management.