Slovenia: Novi Mesto

From 2016 to 2019, former Zares MP Franci Kek received 20,950 euros from the municipality of Novo mesto to participate as a social worker in the coordination of work between local community authorities and state authorities in the field of Roma integration in their municipality. The municipality explained this as follows: “His work, with his understanding of the Roma issue and the many contacts he has acquired through his previous work, covered an area for the municipality of Novo mesto that was not covered by the colleagues of the municipal administration.”

Some of the conclusions on dealing with the Roma “issue” are interesting: It is particularly pressing in Novi Mesto, as the city is surrounded by Roma settlements, which are the source of crime, violence, unemployment, lack of education… His report on the work done in October 2018 is a cause for concern, in which, among other things, it is written that he was at a meeting with the then to the State Secretary at the Ministry of Justice, Dominika Švarc Pipan (now the Minister of Justice).

“The secretary believes that it is not up to the Ministry of Justice to implement the measure of abolishing fines at the same time as introducing the possibility of reducing the penalty from the work of social transfers. I think that this move would arouse great resistance in the public, so it would be necessary to hold quite a lot of talks with the non-governmental sphere before that.” for various offenses (Roma in Dolenjska are among the record holders) fines are taken from social assistance’s cash.