Latvija in brief - 2011-04-28

The Welfare Ministry has not managed to come up with the necessary 11 million lats (15.7 million euros) in funding for family benefits after July 1 and will request this amount from the Finance Ministry, says a report in the daily Diena. The Finance Ministry has not received the request yet and declines to comment whether the funding will be allocated or not. According to unofficial information, the amount could be taken from the government’s emergency funds. International lenders, however, could object to this since they previously urged the government to pay the benefits only to families below the poverty line. Currently families receive 8 lats in family benefits for every child one to 15 years old, or older and studying in a general or professional educational establishment and unmarried. Families receive the benefit as long as the child is attending an educational establishment until he/she reaches 19 years or marries.

After carrying out 25 searches in Riga, officers of the State Revenue Service’s (SRS) Financial Police have uncovered yet another money-laundering ring, reports LETA. The SRS says it has calculated that the money-laundering ring is responsible for almost 1.7 million lats (2.4 million euros) in losses to the state budget by forging documents and offering services for clients with reduced tax payments and money laundering. Seven persons have been detained on suspicion of being involved in the scheme. According to initial information, the money-laundering network was made up of 30 companies, including some registered abroad. These companies operated in a wide range of areas - agriculture, clothing, computer and construction material retail, as well as transportation and other service companies. During the searches, a large number of rubber-stamps, documents and code calculators used by the companies were removed, as well as cash totaling 13,000 lats.

The number of people working at organizations and entities funded from the state budget in 2010 reached 62,900, which is 25.4 percent less than in 2008 and 11.4 percent less than in 2009, according to a report on effective personnel management in the public sector that the government reviewed on April 26, reports LETA. The total number of employees in the public sector in the last quarter of 2010 made up 8.3 percent of the population of Latvia, bringing Latvia to the European Union’s average number of 7.9 percent. The report emphasizes that, during the economic crisis, the Cabinet of Ministers has carried out significant wage reductions in public institutions, from an average 585 lats (835 euros) a month in 2008 to 458 lats in 2010. This equals a 27.7 percent reduction from 2008, and a 5.7 percent reduction from 2009. It is planed that in 2011 the government will continue work to improve the efficiency of the public administration.