The illegal and uneconomic conduct in organising the now former Latvian PM Krišjānis Kariņš’s special flights incurred EUR 545 000 in unjustifiable expenses for Latvia and the Council of Europe, the State Audit concluded.
The State Audit considers that by using special flights in cases where no emergency situation had been declared in the state and when alternatives to scheduled commercial flights were available within a reasonable time, illegal actions with state budget funds were committed. This led to additional state budget expenditure of at least EUR 221 566. On the other hand, the alleged non-economic behaviour, according to the State Audit, resulted in additional expenditure of at least EUR 323 688 to the Council of Europe.
“Thus, the Law on Prevention of Squandering of the Financial Resources and Property of a Public Entity has not been complied with,”
the State Audit concluded, adding that the audit also fount irregularities relating to the organisation of public procurement and accounting.
According to the State Audit, information acquired in the audit indicates that in the adoption and implementation of decisions on the use of special flights on foreign missions, both the then Prime Minister Kariņš and the Prime Minister’s Office and the State Chancellery under his direct authority were involved. The Prime Minister’s Office was then managed by now Saeima deputy Jānis Patmalnieks. The State Chancellery remains under Jānis Citskovskis.
According to the State Chancellery, all of the officials involved in decision-making in regards to special flights should be investigated for their responsibility. At the same time, the State Audit notes that the audit cannot identify specific people responsible for making decisions related to the special flights used by the prime minister for foreign missions.
The State Audit provided recommendations how best to fix the situation. Information detailing illegalities was forwarded to the Prosecutor General’s Office and the Procurement Monitoring Bureau.
In total, the State Audit investigated 53 of Kariņš’s foreign visits. 21 of them used regular flights and in 32 cases the prime minister and his delegation used special flights.
The scandal that revolves around the special flights has continued for several months.
According to information from the State Chancellery, between 2021 and 2023 the state budget paid EUR 613 830 on these flights. Together with the money provided by the EU, expenses reached EUR 1.36 million.
After the scandal escalated in March, Kariņš announced his decision to step down as Latvian Minister of Foreign Affairs.
The 10th of April is his last day in this post.
Also read: Latvian minister “sweats bullets”. Agnese Logina interviewed by A.Kaimiņš in “Suņu būda V2.0”
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