Social Security and Labour Minister Monika Navickienė has announced that she is resigning from her post after media published details about her ties with a fintech company under investigation.
She announced the decision on her Facebook account on Wednesday evening.
“I have just taken one of the most difficult decisions of my life. I have submitted my resignation to Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė,” she posted.
She said she would give more details at a media conference on Thursday morning.
Navickienė resigns amid media reports about the activities of her spouse Mindaugas Navickas at Foxpay, a fintech company that provides online payment services to numerous government institutions, as well as the minister’s links with the owner of Foxpay, Ieva Trinkūnaitė, and her partner Vilhelmas Germanas, who has been convicted for financial crimes.
Delfi.lt has previously reported that Foxpay won a contract from the Committee for the Development of the Information Society to service payments through the State Information Resources Interoperability Platform, the government’s online payment system, in 2022. The company charges 34 cents per transaction and handles about 72,000 transactions per month. According Delfi’s sources, Foxpay’s fee for private businesses is 7 cents per transaction.
On Wednesday, the company called these reports “insinuations” and said it was cooperating with the authorities. According to the company’s CEO Saulijus Galatiltis, the company took part in the tender announced by the Information Society Development Committee in 2022 and is fulfilling the contract in accordance with all requirements, while the pricing of specific services is reasonable. Moreover, it said, the previous service provider had been charging more.
Foxpay was briefly headed by Mindaugas Navickas, the spouse of Minister Navickienė, but last week he decided to resign from the company after information about investigations into the company became public.
Navickienė had previously stated that the company where her spouse worked had not participated in any public procurement tenders organised by the Ministry of Social Security and Labour.
The minister had previously stated that she did not see any reason to resign, nor any “appearance of a conflict of public and private interest”.
This week, more details about the Navickienė family’s business connections began to emerge.
On Wednesday, the government’s press service confirmed to BNS that Ieva Trinkūnaitė, a shareholder of Foxpay, had tried to acquire Navickas’ company Litlab, but changed her mind when authorities vetting strategic deals concluded that the purchase would compromise national security.
Trinkūnaitė, who is the founder of the fintech company ISun, is a sister of Navickas’ brother’s wife. Minister Navickienė previously stated that she communicates with the owner of Foxpay “very rarely” and that she was not aware of the risks associated with her partner, Germanas, who has been imprisoned for financial crimes.
15min.lt reported on Wednesday that, in 2023, Germanas worked for some time at Litlab, a company owned by Navickas.
It has also been reported that Navickienė flew to Dubai on a private jet last year together with Trinkūnaitė and Germanas.
“You see me at a rather difficult time in my life, emotionally as well. Although I’m convinced that I haven’t violated the public interest, I have made a human error,” Navickienė said at a press conference on Thursday morning.
She was referring to her private jet flight to Dubai together with Trinkūnaitė and Germanas. She said that the trip was offered to her children, and her decision to join them was spontaneous.
“I’m sure that I have not caused any damage to the state, I have not created any conflict of interest, but I recognise that it was a human mistake, which I would never repeat,” Navickienė said.
She said she did not know at the time that Germanas had a criminal record.
Navickienė also said she discussed her resignation with Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė on Wednesday evening.
“I said that I intended to resign, and the prime minister approved of the step,” she said.
Ieva Skarelytė, the prime minister’s spokeswoman, confirmed to BNS that Šimonytė received Navickienė’s letter of resignation.
Navickienė is also currently serving as acting education minister
‘Luxurious mistakes’
Following Navickienė’s decision to resign as social security and labour minister, Šimonytė and President Gitanas Nausėda discussed the situation on Thursday morning.
“The prime minister is set to submit a motion to dismiss Monika Navickienė from her ministerial position, and I will sign this motion immediately,” Nausėda said after the meeting.
“We discussed possible candidates for both education minister and social security and labour minister. There are two candidates for the former and one for the latter. I cannot mention the names because they have not been officially submitted yet,” he added.
Talking about Navickienė’s resignation, the president said she has made “luxurious mistakes”.
“If the minister is appealing to the fact that there are human errors, I would say that there are two kinds of errors: simple errors and luxurious errors. Navickienė chose the path of luxurious mistakes, and she has to answer for it,” Nausėda commented.
Šimonytė confirmed on Thursday morning that she has accepted Navickienė’s resignation.
“Yes, the decree was submitted this morning,” she told reporters.
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