Latvian Prime Minister Andris Skele has sold his highly controversial, 100 percent stake in a food processing conglomerate for $29 million , hoping to put to rest charges that he had a blatant conflict of interest.

Ever since he became prime minister last July, Skele has been dogged by charges that used economic policy to help bolster the fortunes of the company, New Technology and Business Development Corporation-formerly called Ave Lat. The umbrella group includes some of Latvia's largest food processing plants, like Laima, a leading producer of chocolate candy in the Baltic states, plus Latvia's largest diary and one of its largest breweries. The concern was sold to Bolster Management, which had already been involved in managing New Technology and Business Development Corporation under a blind trust set up by Skele after he became prime minister. The prime minister came under particularly heavy fire for his ownership of the group from Latvia's oil-transit sector, whose leaders have long seen Skele and his association with the food processing industry as a threat. One of Skele's bitterest critics has been the mayor of the port city of Ventspils, Aivars Lembergs-considered the deacon of the country's powerful oil-transit sector. Lembergs and Skele have been arch enemies for years and have frequently been at loggerheads over major economic and political issues. They oil/transit-trade barons have blasted Skele's government for devoting too much time and money on producers at the expense of the transit-trade sector. Transit trade, especially of Russian oil bound for the West, accounts for over 10 percent of Latvia's GDP.