Commission to decide on probe into LSDP hires at manor

Lithuania’s parliamentary Anti-Corruption Commission is expected to decide on Wednesday whether to open an investigation into members of the ruling Lithuanian Social Democratic Party being employed at Raudondvaris Manor in Kaunas District, LRT reported.

“We should decide whether to start an investigation. If the majority of the commission decides to do so, decisions would follow after the material is collected,” commission chairman Arvydas Anušauskas, a conservative, told BNS on the eve of the meeting.

Anušauskas said he expected Social Democratic members to attend the meeting but was not certain they would support the party’s politicians.

The issue was already on the commission’s agenda at the end of August. However, governing Social Democrats Ramūnas Vyžintas, Lilija Vaitkūnienė, Ilona Gelažnikienė and Roma Janušonienė, along with Artūras Zuokas, Ignas Vėgėlė and Raimondas Šukys, who belong to the Mixed Parliamentary Group and the Dawn group respectively, did not attend. The meeting was cancelled because only five of the commission’s 12 members were present.

Prime Minister Mindaugas Sinkevičius later said he believed his party colleagues would take part when the commission reconvened in early September.

LRT reported in mid-August that Raudondvaris Manor had become a workplace for people linked to the LSDP. The report said that, until a few months earlier, the institution had employed Aurelija, the spouse of Kaunas District Mayor Valerijus Makūnas, a Social Democrat.

The manor also employs the mayor’s adviser Loreta Navakauskienė and her spouse, Jūratė Kuzmickaitė, an adviser to the education minister in parliament, as well as the son of long-serving manor director Snieguolė Navickienė and other people connected to the governing Social Democrats.

Prime Minister Sinkevičius’s wife, Aistė Sinkevičienė, also works half-time as a public relations specialist at the manor while receiving a second salary. In explanations submitted to BNS, she said she had worked remotely there for half-time since the end of 2018. She said she had been hired by the then-director, Snieguolė Navickienė, who could assess her professional abilities based on projects they had previously carried out together.

LRT’s investigation also found that, after Sinkevičienė returned from maternity leave, Kaunas District Municipality established a Public and International Relations Department. She became its head without a competition as a civil servant whose work had exceeded expectations.

Kaunas District Municipality’s administration began an internal investigation last week into the actions of two employees linked to information that had been made public. Administration director Mantas Rikteris said one of those being investigated was the head of the Public and International Relations Department, a position held by Sinkevičienė.

Sinkevičienė rejected doubts about her career in the municipality, saying she won a senior specialist competition in 2023 after defeating other candidates and later became department head as a civil servant whose work had exceeded expectations.

Following the public broadcaster’s investigation, Raudondvaris Manor’s acting director Kotryna Inga Morkūnaitė and deputy director Egidijus Morkūnas were temporarily suspended from their duties.