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“Obviously, the minister does not control the situation in the ministry and fails to organize work smoothly,” she said in a comment forwarded to BNS by her press office.
The president’s comment came after Rasa Kazėnienė, a former employee of the Lithuanian Prisons Department who currently works at the Justice Ministry, said that Deputy Justice Minister Bakšys could have stalled an audit of the prison system.
Grybauskaitė plans to discuss the issue of Vainiutė’s responsibility and her staying in office with Prime Minister Saulius Skvernelis after he returns from his vacations.
Skvernelis is expected to be back in office on Monday.
Kazėnienė said at a news conference on Wednesday that Baksys had block a proposal by her and Dorita Visalgienė, the head of the ministry’s Centralized Internal Audit Division, to turn to law-enforcement bodies during an inspection of the Pravieniškės correctional facility.
According to Kazėnienė, Justice Minister Vainiute was present at the meeting during which the vice-minister allegedly put a brake on the initiative.
Vainiutė denied having stalled “any processes”.
She also denied a statement by Skirmantas Malinauskas, an adviser to Skvernelis, that it was Bakšys, not the minister, who was making key decisions at the ministry, and concerns that efforts were being made to force Kazėnienė to leave the ministry.