Online MLA expenses delayed
Posted Oct 20, 2010 06:06:59 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Politicians are hoping the full and total disclosure of MLA expenses on the internet will help prevent another scandal, but you’ll have to wait until 2011 if you want to see the expenses on-line.
Liberal house leader Manning MacDonald wants to know why it’s taking so long to get the expenses of Nova Scotia MLA’s posted to the web.
“We’re having to change a number of rules in order to affect that,” he said “I think it would be a simple matter of getting the members expenses every month and putting them online. That should have been done by now.”
The all party committee overseeing spending has made a commitment to get the numbers out.
But Speaker Charlie Parker says there were other considerations, like using standard accounting procedures.
“We had to decide, first of all whether to use the SAP system or the MLA system we had previously,” he said. “We found that the SAP system is the best. It’s in line with what other government departments are doing. We’re pleased; it’s coming along within a reasonable period of time.”
Parker says the spending records of all members of the assembly should be online by next year, starting with the November expenses.
