FinMin to look into EAS support for Ermamaa

Photo: Elmo Riig

The financial control department of the Ministry of Finance is about to open an inquiry to determine whether the decision of Enterprise Estonia (EAS) to reclaim 10 percent of the support granted to former President Toomas Hendrik Ilves' company Ermamaa was legal.

Seeing that the EAS decision has attracted much attention, the financial control department is going to do some advisory work, with the aim of assessing the company's eligibility for EAS support and forming an opinion on whether the decision to reclaim only 10 percent of the grant of 190,392 euros was legal, it appears from the ministry's letter.

The work is not aimed at making a judgement of the eligibility for support of the expenses and bills declared within the framework of the project, the financial control department said.

In order to carry out the audit, the ministry wants EAS to forward to it at the first opportunity all documents concerning the grant to Ilves' company Ermamaa, including the application for the support, the recipient's statements and all the decisions concerning the project the business support organization made in 2007-2016.

The ministry also wants EAS to forward to it all other decisions on reclaiming support made during the same period.

Minister of Entrepreneurship Liisa Oviir also announced last Friday she had instructed the supervisory board of EAS to conduct an audit of the support to Ermamaa.

EAS announced recently it had claimed back 19,039 euros from Ermamaa following a written notice from Ilves about the company not continuing to run tourist facilities at his Arma farm for which it had received a grant from EAS in 2006. Ilves has paid back the required amount.