Minister denies conflict of interest in Oulu municipal zoning decision

Lindén says she deliberately left City Council meeting before vote

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Minister of Communications Suvi Lindén (Nat. Coalition Party), who also serves on the Oulu City Council, steadfastly denies that a Parliamentary election campaign contribution that she got from the KMS organisation had anything to do with the zoning changes that allowed the construction of a Masku furniture store outlet in an Oulu neighbourhood.
      KMS is an association formed mainly by businessman for the purpose of channelling campaign contributions to Parliamentary candidates of their choosing in the 2007 Parliamentary elections.
      Toivo Sukari, the owner of the Masku chain, is one of the contributors to KMS. In the spring of 2008 the Oulu city Council made zoning changes to allow the construction of a Masku store in the Ritaharju district.
     
“There were no linkages. The zoning project was launched in the spring of 2001, and the matter proceeded all the way to the City Council without opposition. I heard a day before the council meeting who was behind KMS. The support was for the Parliamentary elections of 2007, and I have declared that in public”, Lindén said in Kajaani on Monday.
      Lindén, who received EUR 5,000 from KMS, says that he has never met Mr. Sukari.
      Lindén says that as there were no links between her and the zoning change applicant, she did not disqualify herself from the vote after hearing that the beneficiary of the proposal would be one of her contributors.
      “Such a disqualification would have created the linkage, and there was no linkage.”
     
Nevertheless Lindén now says that she left the meeting deliberately.
      “I left the meeting because I did not want to take part in the decision-making.”
      Previously Lindén had said that she left in order to attend a meeting of a charity organisation. So what was the real reason for leaving the meeting early - the other engagement, or the revelation that Masku was involved in KMS?
      “It was a combination. I wanted to be away from that specific item of business. If I did not have the other engagement, I would have considered the matter separately.”
      Lindén says that the City Council group of her party had discussed the matter when the involvement of the owner of Masku in KMS funding had come out.
      “This way I didn’t have to ponder the issue, since I had that other engagement. It was a simple solution to be absent during that item of business, as I had another commitment. I hit two birds with one stone.”
     
According to Matti Tolvanen, Professor of Criminal and Procedural Law at the University of Joensuu, the campaign financing issue could lead to suspicions of bribery and malfeasance in municipal decision-making.
      Tolvanen told Helsingin Sanomat that municipal officials should disqualify themselves from taking part in a decision, in which they the donor might benefit.
      Lindén says that she does not understand why she should disqualify herself in a situation in which she has publicly disclosed her sources of finance.
      “If the threshold for disclosing campaign donations is EUR 1,000, then should those who have received EUR 1,010 disqualify themselves, while a candidate getting EUR 990 does not? We need rules. Is all funding public, and should everyone disqualify him, or herself, or is the starting point that election funding does not create linkages?”
      Questions of conflicts of interest for municipal council members are dictated by municipal law, not the donation thresholds of the law on election financing. Do you feel that you know the rules well enough?
      “I do. A conflict of interest emerges if a person, or that person’s relatives are in administrative bodies that are affected by a decision, and then there is naturally the subsection on the credibility of decision-making.”
      “There is no point in speculating on this case of mine, as I wasn’t present when the matter was handled”, Lindén concludes.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  KMS support to Vanhanen campaign: Centre Party’s Kontiola made bank transaction (9.6.2008)
  Nova Group backed KMS with at least EUR 145,000 (6.6.2008)
  Election contributions can lead to criminal charges at municipal level (17.8.2009)
  Vanhanen: Kontiola called to apologise before coming out on KMS (12.6.2008)
  Police investigating Rovaniemi property dealings with Nova Group (16.6.2008)

Helsingin Sanomat