The initiative to return the mandatory procurement component (OIK) is unfeasible — this opinion was expressed in the podcast “Piķis un ģēvelis!” on tv3.lv by former politician Ivars Zarins. He noted that he also received an offer to join the initiative but declined.
Zarins doubted the possibility of returning OIK for an 18-year period, as stated in the initiative.
"As someone who knows the whole system, how it all happened and what the regulations are, I immediately understand — this is impossible. People are being misled. [...] There are statutes of limitations; it is completely impossible to obtain data after 18 years. The regulations provide for only a five-year period during which information about calculations must be kept," he explained.
He also expressed concern that this initiative may have political motives.
As previously reported by the TV3 program "Nekā personīga," since the beginning of summer, residents have been urged to join a collective lawsuit against the state to recover OIK, which they have paid in their electricity bills for 18 years. The society Tiesiskums.lv, created by lawyers, claims that the European Commission recognized such a scheme as illegal and expects the state to agree to return the paid funds.
At the same time, other lawyers point out that no Latvian court has recognized the OIK system as illegal, and the decision of the European Commission mentioned by the society, on the contrary, states the opposite. Nevertheless, residents continue to respond, providing their personal data to the society and signing contracts, often without even reading them.
Such activity in an election year raises suspicions that the project has a political nature and its goal is to mobilize dissatisfied citizens against the actions of the state.
