R. Karbauskis is clarifying the situation regarding the expenses of the parties in the Jonava council

A. Tapinas announced on Thursday that some members of the council used foreign cards to receive payments, bought televisions, and submitted family members’ communication expenses to receive compensation.

“Fuel is poured in 12-second intervals, and one social democrat manages to teleport from Jonava to Kaišiadori,” said the public figure.

The member of the public singled out the representatives of the Lithuanian Peasants and Greens Union (LVŽS).

“One used to pour himself 45 times a month, but he says that the check slipped him. The other presented 47 different cards and almost all checks from the same gas station employee Danguolė, but says that he does not know Danguolė,” A. Tapinas announced.

He said that he did not receive an answer from the Jonava district mayor Mindaugas Sinkevičius to the questions about the cards and four phone numbers he has and raises the question about his responsibility for the entire Jonava branch of the Lithuanian Social Democratic Party.

At that time, the leader of the Union of Lithuanian Peasants and Greens, Ramūnas Karbauskis, announced on Facebook on Thursday that he was reacting “to such public information very seriously”.

He said that he has already addressed the members of the Jonava department, asking them to provide full information on how the allowances paid to the council members were used.

“At the moment, I have answers for two politicians: the chairman of the party’s Jonava branch, Arvydas Gasys, is turning to the prosecutor’s office himself, asking to determine who possibly falsified his reports, because some of the submitted documents supposedly justifying the expenses – fuel receipts, as Arvydas himself informed me, have nothing to do with he did not provide them to the politician himself and to the municipal accounting office”, informed R. Karbauskis.

According to him, Gintaras Stašionis, the party’s former candidate for mayor of Jonava, made a decision to temporarily suspend his membership in the party “until the competent authorities determine and find out whether the politician is at fault or not”.

“If unpleasant suspicions are confirmed, the decision will be short and unequivocal. Neither I nor the party will tolerate abuse of the responsibilities entrusted to politicians by voters. And every initiative that makes self-government, and in general all politics, more transparent is to be welcomed and will be supported by me”, announced R. Karbauskis.

BNS could not contact Mayor M. Sinkevičius. The politician announced on Facebook on Thursday that he is in Brussels and intends to answer questions on Saturday before the congress of the Lithuanian Social Democratic Party.

It is announced on the website of the municipality of Jonava district that the council, at the second meeting of this term last week, made a decision to temporarily suspend the payment of the activity allowances of the members of the municipal council.

As announced, activity allowances will not be paid to council members from June 1.

According to the municipality, the council members also tasked the Council Regulation Commission to prepare proposals regarding the size, payment and settlement conditions of the municipal council member’s activity allowance and submit them to the council.

“It is expected that the Seimas, in turn, will initiate amendments to the Law on Local Self-Government and will answer at the national level the question of how much benefits municipal council members can receive, how they must use them and how they should report,” the municipality’s website says.

In recent months, A. Tapinas has been publishing information about expenses of members of municipal councils that may have been used in a non-transparent manner, and the members of the Cabinet of Ministers who worked in the Kaunas Council also received questions about the use of payments: the Minister of Education, Science and Sports Jurgita Šiugždinienė, who resigned after criticism, as well as the Minister of Finance Gintarė Skaistė. Minister of Culture Simonas Kairys.

President Gitanas Nausėda has said that if questions arise regarding their expenses while working in the Kaunas Council, the best solution would be for the ministers to leave.

In response to the crisis, the governing conservatives propose holding early Seimas elections. They argue that the proposal is an effort to overload the political system, as the shadow of the possibly non-transparently used funds has fallen on all parties.

Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė has announced that she will resign if early elections are not approved.