Saturday, January 13, 2018
Farage has his pay docked
There are some who would suggest that his contribution and that of his party to the European Parliament does not justify the full £101,808 a year salary, but Nigel Farage and his fellow UKIP-refuseniks have been elected and they are accountable to their electorate not the likes of me and other pro-Europeans.
However, as the Guardian reports, Farage has finally got his comeuppance after a European parliament investigation alleged he had misspent public funds intended for staffing his office. As a result, he has been docked half his monthly salary.
The paper says that the former UKIP leader, who recently bemoaned being “53, separated and skint”, will lose €40,000 (£35,500) in total after European parliament auditors concluded he had misspent that amount of EU funds:
Financial controllers have been investigating the role of Christopher Adams, who was hired by Farage to work in the European parliament as his assistant.
Auditors suspended Adams’ contract last year, because they were not convinced he was working for Farage on European parliamentary matters. Although paid as Farage’s assistant, Adams was also the national nominating officer for Ukip, where he was described as one of the party’s “key people”.
“Since 1 January [2018] the European parliament has withheld 50% in order to recoup the €40,000 due in salary that was paid to Christopher Adams and which cannot be proved by Farage,” a parliamentary source told the Guardian.
Docking Farage’s pre-tax MEP salary of €8,484 a month would mean he would have repaid what officials call his “debt to the EU” by October 2018.
UKIP have used the European Parliament as a means of funding their political activities for too long. This sanction is welcome.
However, as the Guardian reports, Farage has finally got his comeuppance after a European parliament investigation alleged he had misspent public funds intended for staffing his office. As a result, he has been docked half his monthly salary.
The paper says that the former UKIP leader, who recently bemoaned being “53, separated and skint”, will lose €40,000 (£35,500) in total after European parliament auditors concluded he had misspent that amount of EU funds:
Financial controllers have been investigating the role of Christopher Adams, who was hired by Farage to work in the European parliament as his assistant.
Auditors suspended Adams’ contract last year, because they were not convinced he was working for Farage on European parliamentary matters. Although paid as Farage’s assistant, Adams was also the national nominating officer for Ukip, where he was described as one of the party’s “key people”.
“Since 1 January [2018] the European parliament has withheld 50% in order to recoup the €40,000 due in salary that was paid to Christopher Adams and which cannot be proved by Farage,” a parliamentary source told the Guardian.
Docking Farage’s pre-tax MEP salary of €8,484 a month would mean he would have repaid what officials call his “debt to the EU” by October 2018.
UKIP have used the European Parliament as a means of funding their political activities for too long. This sanction is welcome.
