Former Minister for Smart Administration and Regional Development Inga Bērziņa (JV) is dissatisfied with the creation of a new position at the Nature Conservation Agency (DAP) for Jorens Liopa – the former Director of the State Digital Development Agency (VDAA), who was demoted for violations in the municipal election information technology processes. Bērziņa told the press that this arrangement is not acceptable.
“I believe there is no need to create a special position at DAP, because with the current budget cuts, funding for nature protection is already insufficient. Therefore, this is not really a good governance decision,” Bērziņa explained.
After returning from vacation, Liopa’s duties at DAP will include managing the digitisation and electronic transformation of processes and services, implementing projects for the development of the “Ozols” nature data management system, and overseeing and implementing IT security policies for the databases maintained by DAP.
According to Bērziņa, Liopa should either have been dismissed from his role as VDAA Director, or kept in the position and tasked with fixing the technical errors in the election process – if they were caused by the system’s developers or someone else – rather than transferred to DAP.
However, the former minister emphasised that while she was still in office,
she met with the VDAA team, who strongly defended Liopa.
“Hearing the people and how Mr. Liopa has worked, they evaluated his work very positively. I also met with representatives of the IT sector, who likewise praised his performance,” Bērziņa noted.
Therefore, in her opinion, the previous evaluation should show whether, at the time Liopa was appointed as VDAA Director – when election preparations were already underway – it was still possible to make corrections.
“I cannot say exactly where the fault lies, as that should have been determined by the investigation. Therefore, it should have been assessed whether he should remain in the position or not – but in any case, either remain or be completely removed,” the former minister explained.
As previously reported,
Liopa was demoted on the 4th of August for violations in the organisation of municipal election IT processes.
On the 5th of August, the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Regional Development (VARAM) received Minister Raimonds Čudars (JV) order transferring Liopa to the position of Deputy Director of the DAP Nature Protection Department for two years, with his first working day set for the 6th of August.
Later that day, on the 5th of August, a request from Liopa was received for his annual leave starting from the 6th of August this year. Currently, Liopa is on approved vacation.
According to VARAM’s Public Relations Department, the investigation found that the VDAA Director, in fulfilling his duties, committed a disciplinary violation.
Considering the results of the investigation,
it was decided to demote him for two years
by transferring him to the position of Deputy Director of the DAP Nature Protection Department for this period.
The commission concluded that VDAA Director Liopa made the decision to sign off on putting the Election Platform into operation despite negative performance test results.
Prior to this, due to election process organisation problems, then-Chairwoman of the Central Election Commission (CVK) Kristīne Saulīte resigned, as did Bērziņa, who before that had suspended Liopa from his role as VDAA Director.
The vote count in the 2025 municipal elections encountered technical problems. Election precincts also experienced technical issues during the week of early voting.
CVK was also criticised for poor communication with both the public and the precincts.
For example, on one early voting day, CVK announced that the system had suffered an external attack – which later turned out not to be true. On election night, when technical failures occurred and the election system could not be used for vote counting, precincts went for a long period without receiving instructions on how to proceed.
The election process used solutions from three companies – SIA ZZ Dats developed the management portal, the election platform’s Election Information System (VELIS) and the electronic online voter register (ETVR), and the public website was provided by AS RIX Technologies. The ballot scanning system (SKENIS) was provided by SIA Baltic Software Factory. The latter – SKENIS – experienced the most severe problems on election night, as it could not handle the volume of vote counting requests.
The development and maintenance of the election system, along with related matters, have cost the State Digital Development Agency at least 1.8 million euros.
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