March 17, BNS–The Lithuanian parliament Thursday adopted fast-track amendments to allow the Goodwill Fund administering compensation for Jewish religious community property to allocate funds more freely. The vote was 81 MPs for, 1 against and 5 abstentions. Under the new amendment, the Goodwill Fund will be allowed to cover its administrative costs using monies from the state. It suggests fixing administration costs so they never exceed 10 percent of the annual amount of compensation paid out by the treasury according to the annual state budget.

Last year the fund spent 125,942 euros on expenses, but the Office of State Comptroller warned the law didn’t allow the fund to use state allocation for administrative costs. The amendments also allow the fund to invest monies paid into the fund but not used. Such a move would require careful consideration of investment security, liquidity, annual profits and other factors.

When the Lithuanian parliament adopted the law for compensating Jews for properties seized, the Government appointed a special fund to administer the compensation, but no structure was put in place to pay for that fund’s expenses. Several years ago the parliament adopted an amendment to allow the fund to use interest from banks for that purpose, but chairwoman of the executive board Faina Kukliansky said that income didn’t cover costs. An explanatory note provided information the fund last year received just over 2,000 euros in interest.

The State Comptroller has issued findings several times now that the fund was using compensation for purposes not foreseen in the law, namely, for covering administrative expenses. The comptroller noted a total of 313,795 euros had been used for this purpose in the period from 2012 to 2015, but found no other irregularities.