Teder made his donation in two parts, transferring Center €30,000 on July 1 and another €30,000 on September 9. The government decided on September 3 to grant a working capital loan of €39.4 million to Hillar Teder’s son Rauno Teder’s Porto Franco real estate development in Tallinn’s prestigious port area.
Hillar Teder said that donations he made to the Center Party and the Porto Franco loan decision are not linked. “Well, you see, we cannot connect these things. One cannot credibly claim that someone has sponsored a political party for a decade in anticipation of a coronavirus crisis or something similar. It is completely random, there can be no other explanation here,” the businessman said.
“I have simply supported the Center Party more or less quarterly following ideological considerations and I will try to continue doing so in the future,” Teder added, pointing out that the government also greenlit major loans for fuel seller Alexela and Baltic Sea shipper Tallink. “You pick one thing out of a hundred and say that it’s suspicious. Perhaps it could be construed as suspicious if everyone donated. On the contrary, there is no pattern there whatsoever,” Teder went on to say.
“The first thing is to file an application with KredEx and if the agency decides to support the project, it will take the matter to the government. It is not a case of simply asking the government for a loan. At the end of the day, the government is just doing technical work,” Teder explained.