~ 'The minister slipped up,' says NA leader ~
PHILIPSBURG--Finance Minister Hiro Shigemoto has been criticised severely by National Alliance (NA) leader Member of Parliament (MP) William Marlin for authorising the spending of public funds on instructions from an MP ? United People's (UP) party MP Romain Laville.
Marlin's criticism was levelled against the minister at an NA press conference Wednesday in which he addressed the issue of Laville instructing Shigemoto to issue tickets and travel vouchers for him (Laville) and fellow UP MP Silvia Meyers to travel to Mexico for a Parlatino meeting.
Marlin had raised the issue during the recent plenary session of Parliament on the 2011 budget. He told reporters Wednesday that the minister had slipped up by ignoring proper financial procedures and taking instructions from an MP.
"It is totally wrong for the Minister of Finance to be taking instructions from a Member of Parliament, whether that MP is the faction leader of the party that nominated you to be minister or not," Marlin said in response to a question on the issue.
He said the question now arose whether there had been other similar cases and, if so, how many. "This is something we heard of, but the question one can ask is: 'Did it happen before? Is it possible for Members of Parliament to go over to their buddy the minister and say, 'I don't like my laptop so I want a laptop with more speed?' These things are wrong, should not have happened and should not happen."
Marlin also questioned whether the tickets issued had been cancelled, who was responsible for the cancellation fee and whether the vouchers that had been issued had been cashed or returned.
"It cannot be dismissed that the minister slipped up or got carried away or was put under pressure. It has consequences for proper financial management, because at the given moment monies have been spent and when you spend public funds it has to be based on a decision that was made."
When Marlin first raised the matter during the budget debate, Shigemoto said he had received a request for six members to travel to Mexico on June 10, which had been sent to the Finance Department for processing. He said there had been insufficient budget to cover the trip for six members and only two could travel and that this had been communicated to then-Acting Clerk of Parliament Van Dijk Bell as well as to one member of Parliament.
The minister had said that considering that official communication up to that point regarding budget and spending had come from the clerk, having the assistant clerk discuss this matter with him "did not seem out of the ordinary." He said too that it had been a budgetary and not a procedural issue.
However, after further questioning by Marlin as to who had given the instructions specifying which two members should travel, Shigemoto confirmed that the two names for the Parlatino trip had been provided by an individual MP whom he did not name. He said he had written travel vouchers and per diem for the two members in question.
Shigemoto said he had "made the agreement" with Parliament President Gracita Arrindell on June 27 that all directives coming from Parliament with regard to the budget had to be "signed off" by her or, in her absence, the vice president "in order to avoid any future miscommunications."
The Mexico trip did not go ahead because Laville had not cleared it with the presidium.
"One can say if it was in the Ministry of Education or the Ministry of Public Health that the minister is not familiar with the proper rules and procedures governing how financial procedures or how financial matters are handled, but the Minister of Finance knows very well that it is wrong and against proper rules of governance and the accountability regulations.
"A minister can't just take a verbal instruction from a Member of Parliament to issue travel allowance, because it is public funds and you cannot dispense public funds based on instructions you get from an MP or based on instructions you get from a colleague in a political party," Marlin stressed.
He said the party had planned on drafting a motion to be tabled during the debate denouncing the actions of the Finance Minister, but due to the late running of the meeting and the lack of equipment at Parliament this had not been done. However, he said the NA was likely to pursue this issue when the parliamentary recess ended.
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