I reversed the 3e and the second opus but I put in order in (additional information), sry.
Second part of the file that "the Obs" devotes to the hidden money of elected officials: how do deputies and senators use their mandate expense allowances? As they like ! With almost no control. Not to mention the many other benefits they enjoy... in all opacity.
Phone calls to our deputies sometimes hold a few surprises. "Keep our invoices to justify our expense reports? But you don't think about it!, replied one of them (labeled PS), during a conversation on the lack of control of the compensation representing mandate fees (IRFM), distributed every month to our parliamentarians. A deputy works 75 hours a week, madam. So we should do that on Sunday!"
Also read: The hidden money of our deputies...
When the deputy (New Center) Charles de Courson plays the curious and asks his colleagues about the use of their IRFM, the latter also gets funny answers. “I buy my dresses”, retorted one day an elected socialist. A senator, she blandly explained to him that her money order fees were used to do her "shopping, at the end of the week, at the supermarket". Amazing?
66 million euros per year
In addition to their salaries, our 925 parliamentarians receive around 6000 euros every month to cover all the costs related to their activity. A "pocket money" not subject to income tax - simply the CSG and the CRDS - and which normally finances receptions, the maintenance of a political office, catering costs for public meetings. .. In theory, anything is possible.
“Deputies and senators do what they want with it,” denounces Charles de Courson, a great opponent of the opacity that reigns around this envelope and who has tried several times to put an end to it, in vain. Despite some small advances, these 66 million euros of public money distributed each year continue to spiral out of control.
Just before the 2012 legislative elections, Mediapart had revealed that the PS deputy of Ardèche Pascal Terrasse financed, via his mandate expenses allowance, accessories for his swimming pool, train tickets for his family, his parliamentary contribution to the PS or even vacations in Senegal, in Egypt and Spain. Also that year, a study by the ancestor of the High Authority for the Transparency of Public Life (HATVP) had estimated that the IRFM allowed parliamentarians to enrich themselves during their mandate for an amount ranging from 1400 euros to 200.000 euros each. A moral fault but not a crime. When nothing is forbidden... everything is allowed.
Read Also: An elected official: "My assistant married my son, I wasn't going to fire her for that"
When he was President of the Assembly, Claude Bartolone had invited the ethics officer of the Parliament to think about reforms. His two years of reflection gave birth to a mouse... At the beginning of 2015, the deputies – in agreement with the Senate, which also conducted a study on the subject – simply decided to list the banned expenses.
It has become forbidden to buy real estate, and in particular a political office: many parliamentarians had in the past bought the premises, before renting them... and therefore enriching themselves. It is also forbidden to finance an election campaign through the IRFM, or to pay a contribution to a political party. The new regulations provide that the offices of the two chambers can be seized, and request explanations from a parliamentarian in the event of suspicion... When? How ? For what ? The text does not specify. And, since the vote on this text, no elected official has ever been checked.
As for the idea of a control on invoice, it was excluded because considered too expensive. Part of the administration should have devoted itself to verifications. Latest reform: MPs must since 2015 sign a declaration of honor, which certifies that their IRFM has been used "in accordance with the established rules"...
"Go further in transparency"
Charles de Courson is choking:
"A declaration on honor. It's really taking people for idiots, it's a joke!"
The absence of major reforms has left some majority MPs bitter. "We should have taken advantage of this term of office to go much further in transparency, and not be satisfied with 'measurements'", regrets Isabelle Attard, deputy for Calvados (New Deal), who publishes the details of her expenditure each year. 'IRFM.
"How to explain to people who work in the private sector, who advance the costs before being reimbursed, that elected officials can spend around 6.000 euros per month without proof?"
Le senator du Val-d'Oise Alain Richard (PS), vice-president of the ethics committee, does not mince his words either.
"The amount of the envelope is only justified if the constituency is very large. I estimate that out of the 925 parliamentarians, only 30 use the sum allocated in a completely legitimate way. Myself, I spend between 2000 and 2500 euros per months, so I will return the money at the end of my term."
In the Senate, the elected officials who will complete their terms in September will for the first time have the possibility of returning their surplus of IRFM. At the Assembly, where this restitution was already possible, only 500.000 euros were donated in 2012. Impossible to know the identity of the good students...
Cumulators
The worst would be the cumulards, whose lifestyle and expenses are both provided by their national and local functions. The former Assembly ethics officer had also recommended lowering the IRFM for mayors of large provincial towns by 40% … without success. None of these great cumulard aediles – Gérard Collomb In Lyon, Estrosi in Nice, Jean Claude Gaudin in Marseilles – did not deign to answer our questions. Only Jean-François Copé, deputy and mayor of Meaux, answered us... to say that he did not see the point of a reform:
"Because they are two separate mandates, the expenses are not the same."
And if there was only the famous IRFM… Many advantages offered to deputies remain opaque. During our investigation, we discovered that at each term of office, the elected officials of the Palais-Bourbon have the possibility of spending 13.000 euros in IT costs to buy computers, tablets, printers for themselves and their employees. The sum is set at 5.000 euros for three years in the Senate. At the end of the mandate, the material is not returned.
Each year, MEPs can also benefit from 12.000 euros for postage, 2750 euros for taxis and 4200 euros for telephone calls. Transport (trains or Parisian public transport) is completely free for all elected officials.
Violet Lazard
source: NewObs.com
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