Latvia, Legislation, Markets and Companies, Port, Transport

Aivars Lembergs.

On Friday, Sprudzs sent a letter to Lembergs, demanding the mayor's explanations regarding the circumstances of specific decisions made at the Ventspils City Council. After receiving and getting acquainted with Lembergs' explanations, Sprudzs can suspend the mayor.

Barsevska explained that Sprudzs had received the Environmental Protection and Regional Development Ministry lawyers' opinion of the Prosecutor Office's information about Lembergs' performance, which raises a suspicion that Lembergs may have been in a conflict of interest multiple times.

Therefore Sprudzs, in his letter to Lembergs, is asking that Ventspils mayor inform him about several Ventspils City Council decisions that may have been in his personal interest and in violation of public administration principles and the law, as well as about Ventspils City Council's decisions that concerned at least 25 companies.

According to the Prosecutor Office's findings and the conclusions by the ministry's lawyers, during the period from 1998 to 2006 Lembergs was in a conflict of interest regarding no less than 350 decisions made by the Ventspils City Council, which concerned at least 25 companies operating in Ventspils and at the Freeport of Ventspils, in which Lembergs and his children, Liga Lemberga and Anrijs Lembergs, were the actual beneficiaries, the Environmental Protection and Regional Development Ministry informs.

According to the Law on Local Governments, Lembergs must reply Sprudzs in three days. After that, the minister will have the right to suspend the mayor from his job.

The Prosecutor General's Office will not comment the information released by the Environmental Protection and Regional Development Ministry until Lembergs will have submitted his explanations to Sprudzs, as the Prosecutor Office's public relations officer Aiga Senberga told LETA. Monday is the last day when Lembergs must present his explanations to Sprudzs, she added.

On the other hand, Lembergs told LETA that he had not yet received Sprudzs' letter. As to the statement released by the Environmental Protection and Regional Development Ministry, Lembergs said that the ministry's allegations were unfounded.

Lembergs emphasizes that this information has been available already from August 2008 when the public was informed about the charges against him. Sprudzs' sudden activity is very easy to explain: "If the elections were held today, Sprudzs' Reform Party would take just 0.5 percent of the vote, and only 3 percent in Latvia overall, therefore the party would not clear the 5 percent threshold. Whereas more than 50 percent of voters [in Ventspils] would vote for my political party "For Latvia and Ventspils"," notes Lembergs.

The Ventspils mayor is not surprised by the minister's move, because there are only 7.5 months remaining until the next local government elections. Lembergs believes that Sprudzs is trying to "take revenge" on him for criticizing the minister for his "incompetent and unprofessional" work.

"Riga Regional Court has been reviewing the charges against me for already four years, and, while the court has not given its verdict, I am protected by the presumption of innocence as provided in the Constitution of Latvia and the European Convention on Human Rights," points out Lembergs, adding that this is not the first time that someone tries to increase his popularity by accusing Lembergs.