Lieutenant colonel Zdeněk Ondráček of the Czech special police unit for uncovering corruption and financial crime, (ÚOKFK), is one of many long-time officers quitting the force. Ondráček says low pay was part of the reason, but he also felt he could not really carry out his work to the best of his abilities and draw on his years of experience — and saw no prospect of that situation changing.

Czech Police detective Lt. Col. Zdeněk Ondráček — who led investigations into the heavily criticized Opencard tender and suspected abuse of office by supreme auditor František Dohnal — recently left the Unit for Combating Corruption and Finance Crime (ÚOKFK) after more than 22 years on the job. He is just one of dozens of elite detecitves who have quit or soon plan to, feeling hamstrung in their efforts to tackle high-profile corruption cases.

Evaluating police work in a critical and fair way has always been rather difficult. But while the methodology is changed from time to time to hide overly conspicuous nonsense, the underlying principle of the “chalking-up-stripes-system” — which fiddles with crime statistics to make the police look good and increase their bonuses — has always remained the same, writes commentator Jan Schneider.