Former IRL politician: parties received money from Port of Tallinn
Former IRL politicians and Tallinn mayor Jüri Mõis said sources told him that the government parties in 2001, the Reform Party, IRL and the Moderates (now Social Democrats) all received one million kroons (64,000 euros) each from the Port of Tallinn.
“I held the information to be reliable and for the first time ever, I went straight to KaPo (the Internal Security Service) and told them the story,” Mõis told Äripäev, adding that the then heads of the three parties were all invited to KaPo for a talk.
Jüri Pihl, who was then the head of KaPo, and later a Social Democrat minister, said no one talked to them about the Port of Tallinn back then, and there were even no rumors.
Pihl said he did talk to Mõis, but in 1999, and the topic was theft of money from IRL's campaign fund, with no mention of the Port of Tallinn.
Last week the CEO of the Port of Tallinn, and a board member were charged with corruption. Both men have ties to the Reform Party, and the state-owned company's supervisory board has been stocked with Reform Party members for more than a decade.
SDE Chairman Jevgeni Ossinovski and Reform Party Deputy Chairman Hanno Pevkur said their parties have not received any funding from the company.
Tõnis Palts, also an IRL heavyweight and Tallinn mayor between, and a former Port of Tallinn supervisory board members, said cash payments from the company to parties would have been near impossible.
He said the company did make many business mistakes, adding that he did not want to speculate if corruption was behind those decisions.
Editor: J.M. Laats
