Cool Lm1 million for the big boys

Over the past 12 years the PN and the MLP have received between them some Lm1 million of taxpayer money. That's around €2.5 million, to get on line with tomorrow's denomination. Not one cent of the amount had to be accounted for by the beneficiaries. How did the cool Lm1 million accumulate, and what was it all in aid of?

The funds were voted by Parliament, year after year, for the "development of relations with the EU and the Mediterranean region by political groupings in Parliament".

Anyone who wants to check can refer to page 50 of the Financial Estimates for 2007, where the Programmes and Initiatives' votes of the House of Representatives are listed. The allocation provided for the current year, as for the previous two, amounts to Lm86,000.

That, with all due respect to Parliamentary democracy, is a pure rip-off. Such a vote may have been justified when accession to the EU was being debated. But we have now been members of the Union for over three years. As for the Mediterranean region, we have had relations with the various countries since sea craft were created.

Who gets the voted funds? They do not go to any accountable unit of sitting MPs.

MPs do not require any specific funding to develop relations with the EU and Mediterranean regions. Among the standing committees of the House of Representatives there is the Foreign Affairs Committee. It is a high-powered, very active committee. It has its own substantial funding from public money. Its members go abroad several times a year to develop relations.

Who uses the Lm86,000 voted annually? There is no indication that the funds are used by MPs outside their Parliamentary activities. Truth of the matter is that the money goes directly to the PN and the MLP. It is, in effect, a subsidy to the two big political parties, though I doubt that it shows up in their annual accounts. It is a subsidy paid by all taxpayers. I am not aware that the electorate has ever been asked whether it is in favour of paying for such a subsidy.

The electorate certainly has not been asked whether it feels that sitting MPs have to be helped to develop relations with the EU, three years after accession.

The finger should not be pointed at individual sitting MPs. I bet that if they were asked to state whether the voted funds have ever paid for anything in their regard, each and everyone who wished to be honest about it would answer with a curt "No".

Should one make a big issue out of an annual amount going to the two big political parties, out of getting a quarter of a million liri to get to know the EU after three years married to it? I'd say yes. In a Parliamentary democracy, where a basic duty and role of MPs is to approve, oversee and control government spending, every single cent of expenditure is an issue of consequence.

All the more so when the spend goes into the pockets of the political parties.

At the present point in time, it is also an issue of fresh relevance. The Prime Minister has been making noises about whether political parties should be funded through Treasury expenditure, that is, out of taxes and fees of office.

He is set to raise that in today's Cabinet meeting. If the proposal were put in practice, there would be no way to make the beneficiary political parties accountable. They would simply take the money, and spend it on partisan politicking, and to plug their deficits.

There can be no accountability beyond the spin and shouting that taxpayers would be financing.

Serious politicians should have no truck with such proposals. Public funds should be used for public purpose. Not to finance the private political parties to get at each other's throats more and more fiercely. The political class should not be allowed to make further million liri killings.