Vilnius district municipal council – STT complaint regarding benefits and privileges

For example, the Vilnius District Municipal Council re-enforced the compensation of the operational costs of some abolished council members in its operational regulations and established other additional privileges generally not provided for in the Law on Local Self-Government.

Pursuant to the amended legal regulation would provide notes monitoring and taking into account the request of the Mayor of the Vilnius District Municipality, the officials of the STT Corruption Prevention Board carried out an anti-corruption review of the draft amendment to the Regulation on the Activities of the Vilnius District Municipality Council (hereinafter referred to as the Draft Regulation Amendment) evaluation.

The draft amendment to the regulation was aimed at consolidating positions not provided for in the Law on Local Self-Government – faction rapporteurs working under employment contracts: from 0.5 full-time to 5, depending on the size of the faction. The project also proposed establishing that fractions together with referents would be provided with undefined premises exclusively assigned to that fraction and technical means for work (mobile phones, computers, printers, etc.), without providing that these premises would be installed only in municipal premises.

The Law on Local Self-Government does not provide for the positions of the rapporteurs of the factions, the functions assigned to them, nor the rent or purchase and maintenance of separate rooms exclusively assigned to the factions with technical means, at the expense of the municipal budget and taxpayers.

In addition, the above-mentioned project proposed to return the additional payments canceled by the law, which would be paid by the municipal administration, to the members of the Vilnius District Municipal Council – the compensation of the representative expenses of the faction, as well as – the additional payment of the monthly call limit of the committee chairmen’s mobile communication device – 20 EUR.

It should be noted that in 2024 February 24 in the activities of the Vilnius District Municipality Council that came into force regulation the amendments proposed in the editorial board, which are flawed from an anti-corruption point of view and incompatible with the provisions of the Law on Local Self-Government, were accepted, with the exception of the payment of representational expenses.

Such a situation can be assessed as flawed both from the point of view of anti-corruption and the rationality and legality of the use of municipal funds, it shows the lax attitude of the Vilnius District Municipal Council towards transparency and the formation of an anti-corruption environment in the municipality.