Aigars Kalvitis

During the last several years, the family of the once Prime Minister of Latvia Aigars Kalvitis has been earning an impressive amount of money from their owned small hydroelectric stations, the electricity prices of which were «timely» fixed on a political level. Even though Kalvitis previously called it «fooling around with small business», Braslas and Cirisu HES brought their owners more than 760 thousand LVL worth of profit in the last two years.

According to Lursoft data, last year Braslas HES indicators have been especially impressive – its profits exceeded 80% of the total turnover: the company’s annual turnover was 203 thousand LVL, and profits – more than 167 thousand LVL. Meanwhile, the turnover of Cirisu HES was 354 thousand LVL last year, and profits – 142 thousand LVL, Pietiek.com portal writes.

The Kalvtis family is the direct and indirect owner of both HES: Lursoft data shows that 60% of Cirisu HES belongs to SKF and partners and it, in turn, partially belongs to Braslas HES and the 1971 born Kristine Kalvite. And 30% more of Braslas HES capital belongs to Kalvite, and the rest (70%) to Edgars Karklis, Anita Straksa and Normunds Aizkalns.

Kristine Kalvite is Aigars Kalvitis’ wife and, seeing as though they signed a contract marriage, the family now directly and indirectly owns 30% of Braslas HES and 39% of Cirisu HES, which brought their owners more than a quarter of a million large profit (266.6 thousand LVL) in the last two years.

Klavitis should thank the once founder of the People’s party and three times Prime Minister Andris Skele, as well as his own Cabinet of Ministers for these impressive earnings. At first, with the 1998 approved Law of Energy and regulations related to the Cabinet of Ministers on energy procurement from small HES a doubled tariff was instituted at the expense of all electric energy users.

These regulations were changed in 2007, but then, the procurement price for «green» energy was applied to natural gas, which was still very profitable for the «political-businessmen» that launched small HES business – in 2008, the state paid 13-15 santims per KW/h for electrical energy produced by small HES.

In the last days of Godmanis’ government in 2009, they managed to approve the formulation that increased small HES electric energy procurement price by about a third. This price was reduced in May 2009, but it is still notably higher than electric energy produced by Latvenergo.

Ref: 102.109.109.1413