After the "Skaidrina" initiative reached the Vilnius district, it was found that at least eight members of the council "poured" fuel several times a day, and the liberal Arūnas Želnys, who received almost the maximum amount of payments during his term of office, managed to return all the money to the municipality after receiving questions from journalists. However, the representatives of the Lithuanian Polish election campaign-Union of Christian Families (LLRA-KŠS), who paid for fuel with dozens of different bank cards, got the most attention.
In the investigation made public on Thursday, attention is also paid to the current mayor of the district, social democrat Robert Duchnevičiis. It is announced that in the previous term, R. Duchnevič also received the maximum amount of benefits, and mostly paid for fuel in cash. However, as the initiators of "Skaidrinam" note, a different procedure was in force in the municipality.
"The regulation states that the documents justifying the expenses must be issued in the name of the council member. Our interpretation of this norm of the regulation is that all checks and invoices submitted to the financial department of council members must be registered. However, this was not the case. Politicians bought fuel and just carried checks. Without any entered data of the buyer", - writes Andrius Tapinas, the author of the initiative, in the latest report about the Vilnius region.
According to him, another member of the council, a "worker" Tadeus Orševski, also brought non-nominal checks for gas station expenses to the municipal accounting department. It is stated that several of the gas station checks he submitted were issued to companies unrelated to the municipality - UAB "Asorta" and UAB "Moto Marine".
"In order to reduce the manipulation of fuel purchase checks, the municipality introduced a procedure that was supposed to ensure a certain intermediate control: council members' expense reports had to be first approved by the heads of council committees. But the heads of the same committees have considerable problems with their checks," the "Skaidrinam" report reads.
Most of the attention goes to LLRA-KŠS members
It is reported that in the majority of the former election campaign of Lithuanian Poles-Union of Christian Families (LLRA-KŠS) during the last term, they provided checks for different types of fuel to the municipal accounting office, and also "paid" with dozens of different bank cards.
It is announced that Stanislav Adamaitis, the chairman of the Committee for Rural, Local Economy and Territorial Planning, who belonged to the majority, absorbed the maximum amount of 9500 euros during his term of office, which he justified to the accounting department only with checks for the purchase of different fuels. A total of at least 32 bank payment cards are reported in S. Adamaitis's expense report.
At that time, Ana Miliuškevič, the co-party member of S. Adamaitis, the chairperson of the Health, Family and Social Affairs Committee, received EUR 9405 in compensation during her term of office for the expenses incurred by the council member. It is noted that she has submitted a total of at least 33 gas station checks paid with different payment cards. It is reported that there is a difference of only a few minutes between some of the fuel payment checks given by the politician.
Tatjana Markova, head of the municipality's Education, Culture and Youth Affairs Committee, member of the Polish election campaign, also received the maximum payment during the term. It is reported that the politician submitted checks for both diesel and gasoline. In total, T. Markova paid for fuel with at least 17 different payment cards during her term.
Another LLRA representative, Anton Feliks Stankevič, who served as the chairman of the council's Law and Order and Self-Government Development Committee, absorbed somewhat less than the maximum amount during the term. He was paid a total of 9300 euros in compensation. His reports include at least 28 different payment cards. In addition, several times he "bought" fuel a couple of times a day.
Tadeusz Andrzejewski, the current chairman of the Council's Village, Local Economy and Territorial Planning Committee, representative of the LLRA, also came to the attention of "Skaidrinam". He Vilnius district left a total of 18 different payment card numbers at gas stations, some of the politician's checks were printed at midnight, several times in the same night, and some payments were only three minutes apart.
Miroslava Klim, another LLRA member in the council, submitted at least 11 documents confirming expenses paid by different payment cards during her term. Co-party member Edyta Klimaszewska used to fill up with fuel sometimes two or three times a day, and her expense reports show at least 30 different payment cards.
Former LLRA representative at that time in Vilnius district Elvyra Lepilova also absorbed almost the maximum amount of expenses during her term - 9490,17 euros. Her reports include 21 different payment cards, as well as 10 fuel payments made on the same day - in the latter case, all checks were issued within one hour.
Liberal A. Želnys returned more than 9600 euros to the municipal budget
Artūras Želnys, the representative of the Liberal Movement and the head of the Control Committee in the Vilnius District Council, received a total of 9481,71 euros during his term, paid with 43 different bank cards. When the "Skaidrina" initiative began to take an interest in the politician's expenses, he announced that he regretted disappointing the voters and returned more than 9600 euros to the municipality's account.
Also in 2019-2023 Liberal Gintaras Karos, who served in the term of office, submitted 45 fuel checks paid with different cards in his reports to the municipality.
Janina Šokaitienė, a social democrat, also paid for fuel several times a day. The documents she provided show 23 different payment cards, paid for different fuel, in some cases paid with at least 3 different cards in less than half an hour.
The politician herself said that she had experienced serious health problems during the previous term, so she used the help and transportation of other people and felt the obligation to pay the expenses of those people.
Vaidas Augūnas, a conservative who worked in the council, submitted 13 different payment card tags in the documents, and a check from a legal entity was also included in the report.
The politician himself said that the company's check was included in the report by mistake and he is ready to return the required amount.
ELTA reminds that in the spring of last year, after publicist A. Tapinas initiated an investigation into the absorption of municipal politicians' funds by "Skaidrina" and as a result a scandal arose regarding the possible abuse of office funds by politicians, a number of municipalities came under the scrutiny of law enforcement.
