In Lithuania, over a million euros in EU aid for Ukrainian refugees was mistakenly received by non-Ukrainians.
Kyiv • UNN
In Lithuania, over a million euros from the EU, intended for Ukrainian refugees, were mistakenly received by citizens of 43 other countries, including Russians and Belarusians. An investigation into the incident has been launched.
More than one million euros from the European Union funds intended to support Ukrainian refugees in Lithuania were mistakenly distributed to citizens of other countries, including Russia and Belarus. This is reported by the Lithuanian broadcaster LRT, reports UNN.
Details
The Ministry of Social Security and Labor of Lithuania has launched an internal investigation after it turned out that EU support intended for Ukrainians was received by citizens of 43 other countries, such as Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan, who had residence permits in Lithuania.
The European Social Fund Agency (ESFA), which administered the project, confirmed the dismissal of its director Lina Nevinskiene on May 13. Audrone Alisauskiene has been appointed as the acting director. However, the agency claims that according to the rules in force at that time, support could be legally extended to other socially vulnerable groups of refugees, not only Ukrainians.
Between 2022 and 2023, the EU allocated almost 17 million euros to the project "Support for War Refugees from Ukraine". Assistance included food, hygiene products, medicines, legal services, Lithuanian language courses and subsidized employment.
But the State Audit Office found that 813 people who received these funds were not citizens of Ukraine, and therefore were not entitled to the specified support from EU funds. Among the recipients were citizens of Russia and Belarus - this discovery, which is reported to have caused outrage in Lithuanian government circles.
This should not have happened. We are conducting an internal audit to determine how this happened
Among the recipients of aid, 813 people do not belong to the target group of support for Ukrainian war refugees. Among them were citizens of Russia. Therefore, we came to the conclusion that these costs should not be financed by the European Commission
Last week, the Seimas Audit Committee was informed about the audit findings. The Auditor General's Office has requested the return of the misallocated funds.
ESFA denies the figure established by the State Audit Office, claiming that only 484 people received financial support in error. The agency claims that the rules in force at the time allowed participation in certain activities, such as language courses and subsidized employment, to any socially vulnerable person, regardless of nationality, provided that they had the legal right to reside in Lithuania.
Nevertheless, the ministry confirmed that the project executor, the Lithuanian Employment Service, will be obliged to return the funds within the established deadlines.
Recall
As of March 31 of this year, just over 4.26 million Ukrainians who were forced to leave Ukraine as a result of Russian aggression received the status of temporary protection in EU countries.
