Finnair scandal prompts scrutiny of other state-owned companies
The chair of the Parliament’s Constitutional Law Committee has sharply criticised the government’s mild response to corrupt practices among state-owned businesses.
THE CONTROVERSY surrounding Finnair’s managing director Mika Vehviläinen’s suspect business dealings has generated heated lively debate in Parliament. The controversy developed when Helsingin Sanomat reported last week that Vehviläinen had sold his apartment to the pension insurance company Ilmarinen, where he also sits on the board of directors. Vehviläinen continues to live in the apartment, for which Ilmarinen paid him around 1.8 million euros. Finnair, in which the state is the majority shareholder, now pays the 6,800-euro monthly rent on the luxury apartment. Many MPs both in the government and in opposition have called for closer scrutiny of other state-owned companies also.
“There’s no doubt that the Grand Committee [i.e. the central parliamentary committee] must consider what is right from a moral point of view and from the perspective of good governance,” said the Committee’s chair, Mauri Pekkarinen (Cente).
The Committee will discuss the matter with Minister for International Development Heidi Hautala (Greens), who also heads the government’s supervisory body for state-owned enterprises. Pekkarinen suggested that representatives of the state’s Financial Supervisory Authority and other specialists should also be brought in to the discussions.
No specific timetable for drawing up the measures has yet been finalised with Minister Hautala, he said. Hautala hopes that the outcry following Vehviläinen’s questionable business dealings will lead to inspections in all companies in which the state has shares.
She urged state-owned companies where similar practices may be going on to come forward as soon as possible and said that pay directives for state-owned companies will be revised this spring. “The lesson we’ve learned from this incident is that the issue of benefits must be examined also,” she said.
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