One of Lithuania’s largest printing companies, Garsu Pasauli, has been declared unreliable by the Lithuanian State Security Department (SDD).
This decision means that the Identity Documents Personalisation Centre has now cancelled its passport production contract with the company, the Interior Ministry announced in a news release on Wednesday. Garsu Pasauli has promised to appeal the decision in court.
The news first broke on the 15min news website.
Interior Minister Agne Bilotaite asked the SDD to reassess Garsu Pasauli after the 15min portal published an investigative report suggesting that the company may have links to the Belarusian regime, according to the news release.
Garsu Pasaulis CEO Ana Janauskiene told BNS on Wednesday that the company is planning to take legal action.
“We believe the SDD’s decision to be unfounded,” said Janauskiene. “We’re consulting with our lawyers to resolve the situation as quickly as possible. Yes, we’re definitely planning to go to court.”
Once the contract is terminated, the Interior Ministry will launch a new and international procurement process for identity document printing, inviting bids from as many service providers in the European Union as possible. Thus far, Garsu Pasaulis pas been the sole service provider.
15min and the Belarusian Investigation Centre (BIC) found last spring that Garsu Pasaulis is liked to Viktor Shevtsov, who has been known as Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko’s “wallet,” as well as to the Lithuanian branch of the Belarusian hologram monopoly Golograficheskaya Industriya.
In 2011, Garsu Pasaulis’ parent company established a joint venture in Lithuania named GP Holographics together with Shevtsov and Golograficheskaya Industriya. In the summer of 2022, after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Garsu Pasaulis sold its shares in GP Holographics to Shevtsov via an intermediary.
The investigation revealed that Garsu Pasaulis and GP Holographics are still based in the same building in Vilnius, share the same contract information, and have the same administrator and accountant.
15min has reported that since 2014, Garsu Pasaulis has won all three passport production contracts from the Identity Documents Personalization Centre. The contract won in 2022 was worth more than EUR 30 million.
The cost per passport was EUR 19.40 in 2014, EUR 18.60 in 2018, and EUR 19.90 in 2022.
Source: BNS
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