RIGA, June 12 (LETA) - The State Audit Office will be keeping an eye on Rezekne City Council now that former Rezekne Mayor Aleksandrs Bartasevics (Together for Latvia) and his party's alliance with Latvia First have won a majority in the municipality, the State Audit Office's council member Oskars Erdmanis said on Thursday.

Rezekne City Council still has to follow recommendations issued by the Audit Office following an audit conducted in 2023, which revealed a number of violations in Rezekne budget structuring process. One of the recommendations concerned centralization of accounting.

"We will have to pay extra attention to Rezekne," emphasized Erdmanis.

One way how the municipality could come under the Audit Office's scrutiny is the audit of municipal budgets management, which will begin in the fall. Rezekne City Council will also be covered by this audit. According to Erdmanis, this is not because of Bartasevics' return but because risks have already been identified in the municipality in the past.

As reported, with Bartasevics as mayor Rezekne run into severe economic trouble and was no longer able to meet its financial obligations. In autumn 2023, financial irregularities were detected in Rezekne, which led to the inability to meet its financial obligations. Under these circumstances, Bartasevics was removed from office. He has challenged his suspension in court. Later on, the entire Rezekne City Council was dissolved.

The Rezekne mayor was suspended for serious and systematic irregularities in the management of the work of the city council and for his responsibility for the organization and management of the municipality's budget implementation process. The irregularities in question, as well as the fact that the chairman of the city council failed to provide factual, truthful, comparable, comprehensible and complete information on the financial situation of the municipality and on the preparation and implementation of the municipality's budget, demonstrated the inability of the mayor to fulfill his duties.