Lithuania's Chief Official Ethics Commission (VTEK) has decided to open a probe after a company co-owned by Prime Minister Gintautas Paluckas received a subsidised loan from the national development bank ILTE.
"The proposed investigation will focus on the prime minister's actions, his behaviour during the government meeting. [...] The decision has been made to open an investigation,” Gediminas Sakalauskas, who chairs the ethics watchdog that answers to the parliament, said on Wednesday.
He later told reporters that the probe could take up to three months.
"During the investigation, we will try to answer the question of whether or not there was any violation of the law," he said, adding that questions will also be sent to the prime minister.
"We will also contact the relevant institutions and check all the circumstances, data and facts. This will also involve ILTE," he said.
The watchdog had received three requests to look into the matter and they came from MP Arvydas Anušauskas of the opposition conservative Homeland Union – Lithuanian Christian Democrats (TS-LKD), who chairs the parliamentary Anti-Corruption Commission, and the TS-LKD, as well as the prime minister himself.
Garnis, which plans to start the production of battery systems, received a 200,000-euro subsidised loan from the state bank ILTE when Paluckas was already in office, according to a joint investigation released Wednesday by the investigative journalism centre Siena and Laisves TV.
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The report states that the loan – the maximum available under the Start programme for young small and medium-sized enterprises – was granted in early February.
In February and March, Paluckas was involved in government decisions related to ILTE, including submitting amendments to the law governing the bank's operations and setting borrowing limits for central government entities, including the development bank.
The prime minister owns 49 percent of Garnis and 51 percent of Emus. The latter would not have been able to qualify for the loan because it has been in business too long. Garnis would also not have been able to obtain such a loan if it was formally part of a group of companies with Emus.
Questions have therefore been raised as to whether Garnis was created as a shell company to obtain the loan.
Andrius Tapinas, head of Laisvės TV, said he had correspondence between an unnamed company and representatives of Emus and Garnis, two companies co-owned by Paluckas, proving that the unnamed company had been paid for the goods using the soft loan Garnis received from the national development bank ILTE. However, the goods were delivered to Emus, which was initially not eligible for the loan.
Following media reports about his company, the prime minister asked the Chief Official Ethics Commission to assess the situation, although he maintains he's not in a conflict of public and private interests.
Answering questions from the Liberals in the Seimas on Tuesday, Paluckas reiterated that he's not involved in his companies' operations since 2020 and he also suggested asking the companies' executives for all the details, not him as a shareholder.
He said calls for his resignation were "taken out of thin air".
Meanwhile, the country’s anti-corruption watchdog, the Special Investigation Service (STT), said it was looking into the latest reports. ILTE also vowed to carry out an internal audit within a week and has launched an unscheduled inspection into the possible misuse of the loan.
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