FijiFirst Party General Secretary, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum has written to the Secretary General of Parliament opposing the decision that $10,000 will now be paid into the personal bank account of the individual party’s parliamentary members rather than the account of the political party.
However Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance, Professor Biman Prasad says it is obvious that the FijiFirst wants to siphon the funds from their 26 MPs to be used to pay the huge party debt accumulated during the 2022 general elections.
Sayed-Khaiyum says the $15,000 per member of parliament grant was previously directly paid into the accounts of the political parties however this has changed to $5,000 per member of parliament to be paid to the party account while $10,000 will now be paid directly to the member of parliament’s account.
The $10,000 to each MP is termed as Parliamentary Duty Allowance.
Apart from this, each political party, irrespective of the number of members in parliament, will receive $325,000 per year.
Sayed-Khaiyum says the paying of the $10,000 Parliamentary Duty Allowance to each MP without a formal legal parliamentary approval and with a tax exemption would be seen by many people as a back doorway of increasing benefits for members of parliament. He proposes that the legal way to disburse these funds would be to, as per previous practice, deposit the $10,000 per member of parliament into the bank of the respective political parties which can then decide how it wishes to utilise those funds. When questioned by fijivillage News, Deputy Prime Minister, Professor Biman Prasad says the FijiFirst Party General Secretary is still under the illusion that he is the defacto Prime Minister and can impose his will and authority on people who are upholding good governance and maintaining the independence of parliamentary authority.
Professor Prasad says Sayed-Khaiyum claims in a letter to the Secretary-General to Parliament that the disbursement of the allowance to each of the 55 MPs is illegal under the Parliamentary Remunerations Act.
He says Sayed-Khaiyum insists the money should not be given to MPs but to the party to decide how it wishes to utilise the funds.
The Deputy Prime Minister says the Speaker of Parliament has decided that each of the four parties in parliament will receive $325,000 grant annually to perform their functions effectively.
He says this is to be disbursed bi-annually which means the 4 parties will receive $162,500 in two payments.
Professor Prasad says furthermore, each of the 4 parties will be given $5,000 per MP as grant.
He says the $10,000 each will be paid tax-free as part of the salaries of the MPs, which means it goes directly to the MPs and not to the party to perform parliamentary duties in serving the electorate.
Professor Prasad says Sayed-Khaiyum left the nation in a mess through economic mismanagement, pilferage and wastage of public funds and burdened the people with huge debt.
He says Sayed-Khaiyum has done the same to FijiFirst.
Professor Prasad says now Sayed-Khaiyum wants to usurp parliamentary authority and the independence of the Office of the Speaker by making outrageous claims of illegality and at the same time short-change his MPs.
He says the former Attorney General is once again trying to undermine parliament similar to the way he usurped independence of parliament in December 2014 to ensure the Opposition was under-resourced by changing the funding formula to $15,000 per MP.
Professor Prasad says it resulted in FijiFirst receiving over $1.4 million during 2014-18 parliamentary term compared to the NFP that got less than $150,000 in 4 years.
The Deputy Prime Minister stresses there is absolutely nothing illegal about the disbursement of the parliamentary duty allowance to the 55 MPs to enable them to effectively undertake public duties with the view to helping the people and making easier their access and participation in parliamentary processes through their elected representatives.
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