PM asks prosecutor's office to look into unlawful issue of MPC licenses

Take note – story published 5 years ago

Prime Minister Maris Kucinskis (Greens/Farmers) has submitted to the prosecutor’s office his report on the implementation of the mandatory purchase component (MPC) system from 2007 to 2018, including information on an allegedly unlawful licensing of ten wind farms for government support under the MPC system, the prime minister’s spokesman Andrejs Vaivars told LETA August 8.

In a report chronicling the implementation of the MPC system from 2007 to 2018, the prime minister says that based on renewable energy generation regulations, MPC licenses were issued to ten wind farms on March 24, 2009, although the aforementioned regulations had lost validity on March 14, 2009.

According to the Economics Ministry’s information, the MPC licenses were issued on March 24, 2009 to the following wind farms operating in the western Latvian region of Alsunga: W.e.s.10, W.e.s.11, W.e.s.13, W.e.s.12, W.e.s.5, W.e.s.6, W.e.s.1, W.e.s.7, W.e.s.8 and W.e.s.9.

At the time when the wind farms were granted the licenses, Artis Kampars (Unity) was serving as Latvia’s economics minister, Anrijs Matīss (now Harmony) was the Economics Ministry’s state secretary and his deputy Andris Liepiņš signed the licenses on behalf of the state secretary.

After his weekly meeting with President Raimonds Vējonis today, Kučinskis told journalists that there are some striking details in his account on the implementation of the MPC system, for instance, an extremely high number of MPC licenses.

From the legal point of view, the issue of the ten licenses should have been impossible, Kucinskis said. “I am surprised that this went unnoticed at that time,” the prime minister said, adding that those who claim that MPC can be abolished overnight or those who say that it cannot be abolished at all are all wrong.

According to information available at Firmas.lv, at the time of the wind farms’ licensing they belonged to Renārs Liepiņš. At present, the companies belong to Estonian companies Wnde Solutions, Autour Vole and Viride.

The beneficial owner of Wnde Solutions is ABLV Asset Management CEO Leonids Kils. Sergejs Bunakovs is the beneficial owner of Viride and Maksims Solomončuks the beneficial owner of Autour Vole.

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