LRT chief seeks public hearing into alleged breach

LRT Director General Monika Garbačiauskaitė-Budrienė has asked the broadcaster’s council to discuss publicly whether she committed a breach by failing to disclose information about people from whom LRT purchased services, LRT reported Thursday.

“I maintain that the attempt to declare that I breached my work duties is unlawful both procedurally and substantively, so I asked the LRT council for the issue to be considered publicly,” Garbačiauskaitė-Budrienė wrote on Facebook. “Public meetings are also provided for under the LRT law.”

The council is due to decide on the matter on September 22, according to BNS. Council Chairman Mindaugas Jurkynas said the issue followed findings by the General Prosecutor’s Office that LRT had breached the principles of the institution’s operation and accountability, as well as the public’s and the state’s right to know how public funds are used.

According to Jurkynas, prosecutors also found that the decision had restricted the ability to identify service providers benefiting from the state budget and their links to LRT.

Garbačiauskaitė-Budrienė said Jurkynas had already described the matter to the media as a serious breach, which would automatically result in her dismissal, even though the LRT council itself had supported the decision not to disclose the authors’ names.

“I believe the public has the right to see the discussions on this issue, because the alleged breach is also related to transparency and the public interest,” she said. “If the general director’s election was broadcast, the dismissal process should be broadcast as well.”

Jurkynas told BNS that the council would decide at the beginning of Tuesday’s meeting whether the issue could be considered openly. He also said the council’s role in the decision not to disclose service providers would be clarified before decisions were taken.

Earlier this year, the Seimas adopted a new procedure allowing the LRT director general to be dismissed after a serious breach of duties is established.

The General Prosecutor’s Office has ordered LRT to assess individually each case in which the names of individual service providers are omitted from publicly available programme procurement reports. The order followed a finding that LRT had not disclosed service providers in a report on programme purchases carried out through a non-public survey process in 2025.

Prosecutors said LRT had made a general decision not to disclose all providers without assessing each individual purchase. They said each case must instead be examined separately to balance procurement transparency and openness with the protection of providers’ rights and legitimate interests. The decision followed a request from the Seimas Audit Committee.