The proposal was voted 36:9 with 38 abstentions and was not adopted. The draft proposal will now go back to its initiators for amendment.
Pursuant to the existing law, the government orders a state audit at the fund. The government, however, claims that it cannot order an audit at a public enterprise as it would violate the constitutional principle of the separation of powers.
The Cabinet had proposed involving an independent audit company to do audits at the fund.
In 2011, the Lithuanian Seimas adopted the Law on Good Will Compensation for the Property of Jewish Religious Communities, based on which, 128 million litas (EUR 36.5 million) will have to be paid to Jewish communities for their property nationalized by totalitarian regimes.
Last year, the Cabinet appointed a fund to administer compensation and transferred initial 3 million litas. Compensation applications are accepted until the middle of this year, and money should be transferred in the second half of this year.
More than 90 percent of Lithuania's pre-war Jewish community of about 200,000 were annihilated by the Nazis and their local collaborators during World War II. Around 5,000 Jewish people live in Lithuania, according to the Jewish community.
