Kaunas district launches probe into employees linked to LRT investigation

Kaunas District Municipality has launched an internal investigation into the actions of two employees following information published by LRT Investigations about the employment of the prime minister’s wife and people linked to the Social Democratic Party, LRT reported.

“The director’s order to form a commission has been prepared after receiving information both orally and in writing, and the commission is currently working,” municipal administration director Mantas Rikteris said at a meeting of the Kaunas District Anti-Corruption Commission on Thursday.

He said the investigation would examine the actions of the head of the municipality’s Public and International Relations Division and a chief specialist in the Public Relations Division. “These are the people mentioned in the investigation,” Rikteris said.

The head of the Public and International Relations Division is Aistė Sinkevičienė, the wife of Prime Minister Mindaugas Sinkevičius.

Conservative Anti-Corruption Commission member Gintarė Grybauskaitė-Kaminskienė proposed including opposition representatives, herself and Liberal councillor Jūratė Truncienė, on the investigation commission. Rikteris said that changing the commission would require a legal assessment.

“The question of the investigation’s independence naturally arises. Put simply, as a council member I would not want us to end up with a model where we made the decisions ourselves, investigated ourselves and then declared that everything was fine,” Grybauskaitė-Kaminskienė said.

She asked Snieguolė Navickienė, a deputy mayor who previously headed Raudondvaris Manor, a municipal institution, to provide documents related to the employment of people linked to the Social Democratic Party. Navickienė responded by asking her to specify the legal basis for the request.

Several other members of the Anti-Corruption Commission, including Social Democrats Vytenis Vitkauskas and Rūta Butkuvienė, also said the request should have a legal basis. The commission plans to write to Raudondvaris Manor requesting a list of positions, information on employee salaries, public procurement and other details.

Sinkevičienė rejects allegations

LRT Investigations reported in mid-August that, after Sinkevičienė returned from maternity leave, the Kaunas District Municipality established a Public and International Relations Division. She became its head without a competition as a civil servant whose performance was deemed to have exceeded expectations.

The investigation also said that Sinkevičienė worked remotely half-time as a public relations representative at Raudondvaris Manor, but that her contact details were not publicly available and other employees said they had not heard of such a colleague.

Sinkevičienė rejects the allegations. She says she was hired in accordance with the applicable procedure and that the information made public is inaccurate.

The prime minister has also denied that his wife’s career success is connected to his position, noting that she began working for the Kaunas District Municipality before they married.

The public broadcaster’s investigation also found that, until a few months ago, the wife of Kaunas district mayor and Social Democrat Valerijus Makūnas worked at Raudondvaris Manor. The manor also employs the mayor’s adviser Loreta Navakauskienė and her spouse, Seimas adviser to Education, Science and Sport Minister Raminta Popovienė Jūratė Kuzmickaitė, the son of former long-serving manor director Navickienė, and other people linked to the governing Social Democrats.

Rikteris said manor employees were not covered by the investigation because it could not concern staff of other institutions. He said the commission was headed by a deputy director of the municipal administration and included specialists from other departments.

Raudondvaris Manor receives most of its funding from the Kaunas District Municipality and has a budget of about 4 million euros.