公帑购家人机票 卑议长道歉

卑诗省议会议长列励达(Linda Reid去年夏天赴南非出席大英国协(英联邦)一项活动时，同时也以公帑另购一张商务舱机票，让丈夫同行。此事经曝光後，她已公开道歉，并指会偿还这笔5500元开支。

列励达表示，省议员出差时偕同配偶同行是议会惯例，她与丈夫去年8月下旬飞往约翰尼斯堡，出席8月28日至9月6日在当地举行的大英国协议会会议。

列励达25日已对用公款支付家人机票和住宿费用一事致歉，但无意辞职。她也指出，卑诗新民主党籍的助理副议长周行励(Raj Chouhan)也出席该项活动，也是偕同妻子同行。

列励达声称，省议会现有政策是允许配偶同行，只要省议员能以单张机票价格来负担多一个人，这一作法在议会行之多年。她也表示清楚省府先前即有指令，要求阁员出差不得搭乘昂贵的商务舱，而她在由南非返来後，也曾与财政厅长麦德庄讨论过这一政策。

列励达表示已把夫婿的机票钱5528.16元还给议会，另外数千元食宿费，等算清楚後也会清还。

这也是列励达的开支近期内第二度遭到质疑，本月初她被揭发就任议长以来，已花12万元在办公室装修、计算机升级和其他开销上，其中包括以4万8000元在议会办公桌上安装一部触控式计算机萤幕，1万4000元在办公室安装新帘幕，1万3449元装修一处新的省议员休憩区，并花了733元购买点心供议员享用。

卑诗省议会议长Linda Reid上任后的多项开支遭到批评，她6日打破缄默作出辩解，承诺未来在相关支出上会更严谨及透明化。

温哥华太阳报日前报导，Reid去年7月接任议长以来，有多项开销纪录值得质疑，特别是在在府推行财政紧缩政策的同时更显浮滥，其中包括以4万8412元在议事厅内添置一个新办公桌和一台触控式计算机，又以1万3449元在议会图书馆内闢建一个议员休憩厅等。

Reid先前对有关报导拒绝回应，但她6日发出声明表示，透过新的计算机办公系统，她能够清楚知悉那位省议员希望发言，也让她能够即时观看正在其他会议室举行的委员会开会情况。

她指出，省议会是一栋历史建物，因此很多设施安装时必须尊重传统，同时新的休憩厅对所有省议员开放，包括为行动不便的省议员增设轮椅信道。

Reid表示在下周提出建议，让议长办公室支出有更多监督，更加透明化。

Speaker Linda Reid defends legislature spending

VICTORIA — Speaker of the Legislature Linda Reid defended her spending on Wednesday, saying that $48,000 for a customized computer terminal helps her communicate with three B.C. Liberal MLAs in wheelchairs.

In her first statement about her spending controversy, Reid said the touch-screen “speaker’s console”, with ornate wood panelling, allows MLAs in wheelchairs to electronically “illuminate their intention to speak” in front of her.

Reid also said the computer allows “for enhanced communication” with the Clerk’s table, located less than five feet in front of her, and lets the Speaker view proceedings in other committee rooms at the legislature — even though those rooms also have designated Speakers and chairpersons already monitoring proceedings.

The legislature has an electronic light system for MLAs to signal their intention to speak, but Reid’s statement made no mention of why it was deficient and had to be replaced by a more costly system.

Reid continued to refuse interviews Wednesday.

“As Speaker, I take full responsibility for these expenditures,” she said in her statement. She also pledged to make recommendations “to bring greater oversight, rigour and transparency” to the building’s finances at a meeting next week.

The statement was Reid’s first public reaction to a Vancouver Sun story this week that detailed numerous spending projects at the legislature during a time of fiscal austerity for government ministries, programs and services.

Reid spent $13,965 to replace the curtains in the legislature library. “The drapes in the dining room were last replaced in 1996,” Reid argued in her statement.

She spent $6,377 for new drapes and chair reupholstering in her personal office, arguing it hadn’t been upgraded since 2000, and refinishing the furniture preserved them as “historic assets.”

Reid said a new MLA TV lounge in the legislature library is accessible to MLAs in wheelchairs, whereas the previous lounge on the library’s top floor could not be reached.

But her statement offered no explanation as to why the lounge was stacked with free muffins, snacks and coffee for MLAs, nor why she spent $733 on a food display rack, $5,387 on flat-screen televisions, or $3,675 on a new countertop.

Reid’s statement also ignored the issue of hiring her Liberal re-election campaign manager, who lives in Richmond, to a job in her Victoria Speaker’s office.

That job requires taxpayers to pay the travel, hotel and meal bills for an out-of-town employee to repeatedly commute into the capital, while other employees in the Speaker’s office are based in Victoria.

Liberal and NDP house leaders have called on Reid to explain the expenditures at a meeting of the Legislative Assembly Management Committee next Tuesday.

Both sides have offered support for expenses that increase wheelchair accessibility in the legislature, but said other questions, including the hiring of Reid’s campaign manager, are legitimate concerns.

Both sides have also praised Reid for being more open than previous Speakers, which is largely the result of scathing 2012 review by B.C.’s Auditor General, after which politicians pledged to reform the secretive spending practices of the assembly.

Reid took the Speaker’s office last July, several months after MLAs were already implementing their financial reforms.

Premier Christy Clark echoed her Liberal colleagues on the controversy Wednesday, saying Reid is at least moving in the right direction by providing some figures.

“I think all of us who spend the public’s money have to be accountable for that,” said Clark. “We have to make sure the public knows how and where we are spending it …

“I don’t know any more about how she spent, and what she spent, than you do. But it sounds like she’s open to more oversight, and she’s certainly open to more transparency as she’s demonstrated. That’s the right direction to go in.”

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Speaker+Linda+Reid+defends+legislature+...