Lithuania’s vice-minister of culture resigns

Mažintas was scrutinised by the media for allegedly failing to avoid a conflict of interests in his post.

Vytautas Juozapaitis of the Homeland Union – Lithuanian Christian Democrats, a so-called shadow minister of culture, had urged Minister Birutis to take personal responsibility and explain the public why the ministry creates conditions for ostensibly opaque activities of its top officials.

According to Juozapaitis, Mažintas, a social democrat, was appointed to the Lithuanian Council for Culture and was responsible for supervising allocations distributed by the Culture Support Foundation. Meanwhile, public enterprise Culture Live established by Mažintas won two calls for proposals worth LTL 40,000 (EUR 11,600) announced by the Lithuanian Council for Culture.

Meanwhile the Social Democratic Party informs that Mažintas terminated his contract with Culture Live on the same day when he submitted an application to become the deputy minister. The contract was terminated on 8 March 2013. His wife, who also worked in the company, terminated her contract on 25 November 2013. The social democrats note that on 10 June 2013, Culture Live was sold to a person not related with the deputy minister. The party claims that funding for the projects was allocated only in the first quarter of 2014, when neither Mažintas nor his wife worked in the company, thus private and public interests were not in conflict.

Both conservative Juozapaitis and social democrat Mažintas addressed the ethics watchdogs over the issue.