LISCO privatization controversy continues

  • 2000-11-09
  • TBT staff
VILNIUS - On Nov. 3, Lithuania's Parliament adopted a resolution expressing concern over the privatization of the Lithuanian State Shipping Company (LISCO). The parliamentary group of Social Liberals and Liberals as well as the opposition - the parliamentary group of the Social Democratic Coalition - voted in favor of this resolution. All in all, 83 members of Parliament voted in favor of the resolution.

Six members of the Conservative parliamentary group and one member of the Liberal Union voted against it.

The Conservatives opposed the resolution, saying it could create confusion among foreign investors, and that resident diplomats in Lithuania might interpret it as a negative sign.

"It is not an order to put a stop to the privatization of LISCO," a member of the Liberal Union Raimundas Sukys told the Baltic News Service.

The director general of Lithuania's State Property Fund (SPF), Stasys Vaitkevicius, resigned on Nov. 2 citing the conflict over the privatization of LISCO as the reason behind his decision.

"The new prime minister did not want to work with me, and I also do not want to (work with him)," he said. "Not a single day, not a single hour."

Lithuania's new prime minister, Rolandas Paksas, has said that he would like to see someone more reliable in the position of SPF head. Vaitkevicius took a parting shot at Paksas, saying that his work in the past two-and-a-half years, which saw the SPF rise from near basement standing to sixth place in Europe, "does not interest anybody."

The deal to sell LISCO to a consortium of Dutch companies was made by Lithuania's outgoing government. On Oct. 19, the SPF signed a deal to sell 75 percent of LISCO to the consortium for $47.6 million. The consortium, which includes B.B. Bredo, Sprinter Gadot-Yam Ltd., Eurochem Shipping and Danish DFDS Tor Line, had also agreed to invest a further $76 million in the company by 2003.

Lithuanian State Control, an agency that audits the activities of state institutions, recommended that the deal be scrapped. Its head, Jonas Liaucius, said that the share sale terms were not beneficial from an economic viewpoint and would damage state property interests. He also said that the final deal was $20 million short of the initial offer and that it did not provide for adequate investor responsibility if the consortium were unable to meet its obligations. Liaucius said that the Office of the Prosecutor General should investigate the deal. (Compiled from wire services.)