A select anti-corruption committee at the Estonian Riigikogu (Parliament) is considering the activities of the state-owned Nordica airline and prospects for its privatization at a meeting due to start at 11:00 AM on Wednesday.
The committee’s chair, Anastassia Kovalenko-Kõlvart, says that Nordica has not been privatized, it suffers major losses, and its partnership with SAS will end as of November 1 of this year. That, she adds, will mean that larger numbers of aircraft will remain idle.
“When it comes to the management and privatisation of a state-owned enterprise which is in a state like this, it is crucial to have information about steps that are taken to prevent conflicts of interest in the process,” the chairwoman says. “This is particularly important given that former managers of AS Nordic Aviation Group are currently subject to a criminal investigation that is based on a special audit report, seeking to determine whether entering into a contract caused harm to the company.”
Kovalenko-Kõlvart added that a senior prosecutor told a meeting of the select committee on October 7 that public funds were used lavishly in the management of Nordica and that the company still has not submitted an annual report.
“Nordica’s management will present a further action plan by October 15, and the committee considers it to be important to gain an overview over the Climate Ministry’s expectations vis-à-vis the action plan so that the plans can be compared when the action plan is made public,” said Kovalenko-Kõlvart.
Infrastructure Minister Vladimir Svet and the deputy secretary general of the Climate Ministry, Sander Salmu, have been summoned to Wednesday’s public session of the committee.
Source: BNS
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