Prime Minister Robert Golob has nominated a candidate for the post of health minister three months after parting ways with Danijel Bešič Loredan over a difference of opinion on health reform, the government’s flagship project.
The nominee is Valentina Prevolnik Rupel, a state secretary at the Health Ministry and an economist specialised in health systems whom Golob brought to the Health Ministry when he temporarily took over the portfolio in early July.
The candidate will “strive for accessible and quality healthcare in the public system and ensure stable financing by defining an appropriate basket of services,” the prime minister’s office said in announcing the news on Tuesday.
The move came on the same day that several media outlets reported that Golob would be parting ways with the agriculture and natural resources ministers, respectively, following the Veterinary Administration’s foot-dragging in a recent pesticide scandal and its slow response to the devastating floods in August.
Agriculture Minister Irena Šinko has confirmed she has been asked by the prime minister to leave, whereas Natural Resources and Spatial Planning Minister Uroš Brežan has not confirmed the news yet.
This would be the largest cabinet reshuffle since the Golob government took office in June last year, and it comes just as the government is battling one of its biggest scandals surrounding Public Administration Minister Sanja Ajanović Hovnik, who has come under fire for a costly multi-day trip to New York and an open call for NGO funding in which she is accused of having helped her former business partner.
Ajanović Hovnik seems safe for now, and her party, the ruling Freedom Movement, said that currently, she enjoyed their support, though with the caveat that the final decision would be made once the party had heard her explanation in the face of allegations.
(Sebastijan R. Maček | sta.si)
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