Former Attorney General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum

Deputy Prime Minister Professor Biman Prasad and former Attorney General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum have today entered in another round of squabble.

This fresh squabble between the two has emerged over the funding of political parties.

Sayed-Khaiyum alleges that this funding is done through a back door, but the Deputy Prime Minister asserts that the Speaker of Parliament decided on it and that it will help all parties.

The former Attorney General is claiming that a new grant for parties in Parliament amounting to over $300,000 each did not follow the process and that all MPs will each get around $10,000 from it.

“All 55 of them, so right from Prime Minister Rabuka, to the Leader of Opposition , to all the Deputy Prime Ministers, all the Ministers, Assistant Ministers and all the MPs in FijiFirst they will all get $10,000 in what they called Parliamentary Duty Allowance. I’m very concerned about this.”

He says the Act is very clear on this kind of matter.

“In the Act in schedule 2, what you have is listed all the benefits for MPS for example at the moment you get $200 seating allowance, that’s listed there.

The Deputy Prime Minister Prasad has hit out at Sayed-Khaiyum, saying Parliament now is more considerate compared to when the former AG was there.

“This is a man who changed the funding formula unilaterally denied opposition political parties, for eight years, terrorized them in terms of lack of office, lack of funding.”

Professor Prasad admits that the funding has been made available.

“What we have done is provided a baseline funding to the political parties and the MPs will have what we call duty allowance and that process has been determined by the Speaker of Parliament.”

Professor Prasad says the coalition wants the parties to get the appropriate resources that will help better serve the people.

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