Government greenlights dissolution of Rezekne City Council

RIGA - The government on Tuesday endorsed a bill on the dissolution of Rezekne City Council.

It is planned that with this law the Saeima will dissolve Rezekne City Council, considering its violations of the Law on Budget and Financial Management, the Law on Local Government Budgets and the Local Government Law by failing to ensure the performance of its functions and disregarding the interests of the state and the residents of the respective administrative territory.

The Environment Protection and Regional Development Ministry stated that the city council has been demonstrating systematic incompetence and has deliberately carried out unlawful actions related to the drafting, adoption and implementation of the municipality's 2023 budget, as well as the drafting and adoption of the 2024 budget.

The supervising authorities have not been convinced that the financial situation of the municipality is likely to change under the current council. This would jeopardize the performance of the municipality's autonomous functions and the functioning of the administration.

The bill provides for the appointment of an interim administration of the city. Its head would be the former head of the Enterprise Register, lawyer Guna Puce, and her deputies would be the rector of the Rezekne Academy of Technologies, doctor of economics Iveta Mietule, and former head of the Riga Construction Board Janis Belkovskis.

The bill has yet to be adopted by the Saeima. 

The law will come into effect on the next day after its promulgation. 

Together with this bill, amendments to the Law on the Election of Local Government Councils have been approved, which will allow Rezekne not to hold extraordinary local elections after the dissolution of the city council.

As LETA reported, in autumn 2023, financial irregularities were detected in the city of Rezekne, which led to the inability to cover financial obligations. In these circumstances, the Environmental Protection and Regional Development Minister Inga Berzina (New Unity) dismissed Bartasevics from the mayor's position.