In May, an investigative report published by 15min revealed that “Mokslinės paslaugos” (Scientific Services), a public institution owned by the former Minister of Agriculture, then Chancellor of Vytautas Magnus University (VMU) Agriculture Academy, V. Jukna, receives hundreds of thousands in EU support for training farmers, even though journalists only recorded empty halls for such training sessions.
Following the investigation, Prime Minister Inga Ruginienė dismissed V. Jukna from his position as public consultant. VMU made the same decision and formed a special commission to investigate the situation. The same training sessions without students were also organized at the VMU Agriculture Academy, led by V. Jukna.
Law enforcement is currently investigating the situation. The European Public Prosecutor’s Office and the Financial Crime Investigation Service (FNTT) are conducting a pre-trial investigation into the activities of V. Jukna’s companies related to the absorption of European Union support.
UAB “Mokslinės paslaugos” (Scientific Services), owned by V. Jukna, and the VMU Agriculture Academy, which he headed, came under the scrutiny of law enforcement. According to FNTT, these institutions could have fraudulently obtained almost 400 thousand euros and attempted to acquire more than 188 thousand euros.
Documentation management – negligent
The VMU commission, formed in May, completed an internal investigation into potentially non-transparent training for farmers.
Deficiencies and possible violations were identified in the implementation of three training projects at the Academy. In a press release, the university states that these deficiencies are already being rectified, and information about possible violations has been forwarded to law enforcement.
As the university announced on Friday, the commission formed by VMU Rector Ineta Dabašinskienė found that the supervision of the implementation of training projects was insufficient, and documentation management was negligent.
The biggest doubts for the commission were raised by the lists of training participants and their authenticity.
After interviewing randomly selected individuals on the lists, it became clear that some of them did not participate in all training sessions, while others confirmed that they did not participate at all. Project managers or other representatives administering the projects did not physically attend the contact training sessions.
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“Supervision was not sufficiently ensured when organizing the training. Due to a lack of monitoring and control, discrepancies arose in the documentation. Having identified these shortcomings, we are preventively changing the administration procedure for training projects,” says Rytis Pakrosnis, chairman of the internal investigation commission and VMU Vice-Rector for Studies.
“Any shortcomings in process transparency or cases of abuse are intolerable. The findings of this investigation are a serious signal that internal control systems failed in certain links. We are urgently rectifying the identified gaps and ensuring that such practices do not recur,” states I. Dabašinskienė.
VMU announces that training for farmers is currently suspended. Project management and administration procedures are being changed, and control is being strengthened. Project administration group leaders will be obliged to personally participate in contact training sessions and physically ensure the accuracy of participant registration. A review of project management and administration rules is also being carried out.
In the near future, the Rector will make decisions regarding disciplinary penalties for responsible employees for the identified shortcomings in project implementation.
