Serbia has offered disgraced former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn a job as an economic advisor, a government source said Tuesday, but his office dismissed it as a hoax.
The local Danas daily reported that Prime Minister Ivica Dacic’s Socialist-led coalition government had made contact with the 64-year-old economist ahead of a planned cabinet reshuffle.
“We talked to him (Strauss-Kahn), but nothing is certain yet,” a government source told AFP, confirming the report .
“We have only made the first contact” but Strauss-Kahn was seeking “a lot of money,” the source said.
A source from Strauss-Kahn’s office flatly denied the talks, describing the newspaper report as a “hoax”.
“I don’t know what this is about,” the French source told AFP.
Strauss-Kahn resigned from his IMF job following his 2011 arrest over an alleged sexual assault on a New York hotel maid, but eventually reached an undisclosed financial settlement with his accuser.
Last week, French prosecutors said he would face trial on pimping charges along with 12 others over an alleged prostitution ring.
Strauss-Kahn, who was once considered a serious candidate for the French presidency, has recently sought to return to public life, appearing at economic conferences in France and abroad and setting up an office in Paris.
The Serbian government is planning a reshuffle in the coming weeks in a bid to focus on Serbia’s European Union membership ambitions and kickstart economic recovery.
Source The Economic Times
