Ferro Rodrigues, parliament’s president, has requested an inquiry into expenses after MPs from the Azores and Madeira have been caught fiddling their travel expenses.One MP already has resigned after Expresso outlined the scam where the weekly travel allowance of €500 was being pocketed and actual travel costs also were being reimbursed.
Bloco de Esquerda MP Paulino Ascensão renounced his mandate on April 16th citing, “unwavering ethical principles,” that were required and but that he had not been able to manage them.
Parliament’s Ethics Subcommittee will ‘interpret’ parliament's resolution regulating the MP’s travel expenses allowance and will come up with any necessary legal changes.
The subcommittee started badly by having to ask Eduardo Ferro Rodrigues for a ‘clarification of their mandate’ which he patiently clarified for them as being an investigation into the Azores and Madeira MPs travel allowance.
The aim is "to know whether, from the final understanding of this interpretation, it is necessary, from the point of view of guaranteeing or strengthening transparency in parliamentary activity, to change the legislation in force," wittered the parliamentarian.
The chairman of the Ethics Subcommittee, Luís Marques Guedes informed journalists that at a meeting today that it was decided to start off by listening to Rodrigues himself, sometime next week.
Whether this arcane procedure will result in any changes remains to be seen but with the current dithering, there is a slim chance of MPs being sacked for fiddling their expenses, but a rule change at least is a step forward in ensuring taxpayers’ money will be used appropriately.
