Sinkevičienė denies concealing her municipal roles

Aistė Sinkevičienė, the wife of Prime Minister Mindaugas Sinkevičius, says information about her jobs and positions has never been concealed, following an LRT investigation into her employment at Kaunas District Municipality and the Raudondvaris manor, a municipal institution.

“Information about my jobs and positions has never been a secret. It is published in my declaration of private interests,” Sinkevičienė wrote on Facebook on Wednesday.

She said reports had focused on her appointment as head of the municipality’s Public and International Relations Division without a competition, but had omitted that civil servants can be appointed to positions in several ways.

“Therefore, in accordance with the procedure established by law and the results of my performance assessment, I was transferred to the position of head of the Public and International Relations Division in July 2024,” she wrote.

Sinkevičienė also disputed information about the timing of the division’s establishment. She said it was not created shortly after she returned from maternity leave, as the reporting had suggested, but more than a year later.

She rejected suggestions that she rarely attended her workplace because the municipality had allowed her to work remotely for part of the time. Sinkevičienė said she could count the number of remote working days she had taken as division head on her fingers, although the Labour Code allows such an arrangement for employees raising two children under the age of eight.

The LRT investigation said the Raudondvaris manor had not published contact details for Sinkevičienė, who works there half-time. She said her role was not related to providing comments to the media, as had been suggested.

“I work on preparing texts, visual material and layouts. This type of work does not require publicly listed contact details and allows me to perform my duties remotely,” she wrote.

Municipality defends transfer

Kaunas District Municipality said Sinkevičienė had worked there since 2013. Until 2024, she was an aide to the mayor. According to the municipality, she returned from maternity leave in January 2022 and continued working there.

The municipality established its Public and International Relations Division in March 2023. It said the new unit was needed because the population of Kaunas District was growing and the state had delegated international relations functions to the municipality.

The municipality said Sinkevičienė could be transferred to the newly established position without a competition because her performance had been assessed as exceeding expectations. The decision was made by an order of the administration director on July 26, 2024.

It said the decision was also based on her education, professional experience and work results. The municipality rejected suggestions that personal connections could have influenced her career at the municipal administration.

The municipality also disputed information about Sinkevičienė’s salary. It said the average after-tax salary of heads of municipal divisions was €2,588 in the second quarter of 2026, and that Sinkevičienė’s salary corresponded to that average.

The LRT investigation reported that Sinkevičienė had become head of the municipality’s Public and International Relations Division without a competition and also worked at the municipality’s Raudondvaris manor. It said she worked there half-time as a public relations specialist remotely.