Postimees Digest, Wednesday, March 13
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POSTIMEES:
City officials lose jobs for overlooking the party treasury.
Secretary general of the Center Party Priit Toobal sent a letter to mayor of Tallinn Edgar Savisaar on Friday, March 1 where he proposes the mayor release from office four high-ranking city officials for failure to "discharge their obligations in front of the party".
Postimees' sources suggest that just six minutes later Savisaar sent an email to Arvo Sarapuu, Kalle Klandorf and Mihhail Korb asking for the letters of resignation of the people named by Priit Toobal. The paper writes that the Center Party has a custom of demanding compensation from people it has helped achieve high-ranking positions in the city hierarchy that may be as high as 10 percent of salary.
Toobal's letter proposes the mayor fire head of the city's environment board Otto Popel, City Center deputy borough elder Reena Tolmik, head of the municipal police board Monica Rand and deputy mayor's adviser Johannes Merilai. Priit Toobal said yesterday that his proposal has nothing to do with money to be given to the party and that if someone is fired it is because they weren't suitable for their position or because they couldn't handle the job.
Defense Forces members treated to record salary advance.
Minister of Defense Urmas Reinsalu signed a regulation on March 7 to raise the salaries of regular members of the Defense Forces by 17 percent on average. The minister instructed the general staff to distribute the salary hike so it would reach each and every member and wouldn't complicate the already impenetrable system of bonuses and benefits. Senior non-commissioned officers will see the biggest salary hike at 19.2 percent while their junior colleagues will be treated to an advance of 17.7 percent. In total the ministry has allocated 12.7 million euros to improve the situation of 3,100 people.
Banks against EU financial transactions tax.
Finance Estonia, Danske Bank and the Estonian Banking Association have voiced their displeasure with the planned financial transactions tax that aims to saddle transactions involving shares and bonds with a 0.1 percent tax rate and transactions with derivative instruments with a 0.01 percent rate.
Executive director of Finance Estonia Mae Hansen said that the Estonian finance sector should not have to bear responsibility for the financial crisis as local market participants did not participate in its creation. Heads of Danske Bank and the Estonian Banking Association said that considering the tax would only apply in 11 Member States, it would harm Estonia's competitive ability since the country would be the only one to adopt it in its region. Critics also say that administrative costs associated with collecting the tax and corresponding supervision would not be in accordance with the estimated amount of tax revenue generated.
Riigikogu forms VEB investigative committee.
The parliament passed a resolution yesterday to create an investigative committee to ascertain the facts pertaining to the processing and satisfaction of claims in the VEB fund. The committee is tasked with ascertaining the facts concerning the creation, work order, management of the fund and transactions made between 1993 and 2012. While the committee was originally meant to conclude its work by October 1, the Riigikogu has complied in part with the Reform Party's proposal to postpone the deadline to make sure the work of the committee would not become a central topic at the fall local elections. The new deadline has been set for December 2.