Centre Party presents financial plan to solve debt issues by year end

Centre Party Secretary General Mihhail Korb has presented a financial plan to the Political Parties Financing Surveillance Committee (ERJK), which aims to solve its financial issues by year end.
While the party's fourth quarter financials for 2019 have yet to be released, information appended to a recent party letter showed a net debt of €550,000, ERR reports.
The party aims to make €140,000 more in revenue than expenditures each quarter this year, which it says should be helped by the fact there are no elections this year – a major source of party outgoings.
It is also counting on a little over €340,000 in state subsidies, which all represented political parties receive in proportion to their size, along with €100,000 in donations and over €16,000 per quarter in membership fees, the party says.
Together this would come to €460,0000 per quarter.
As to outgoings, Centre plans to spend €320,000 per quarter, which breaks down as €140,000 on management fees, €120,000 on labor costs and €60,000 on political activities.
If this materializes, the party should be in the black by just under €3,000.
While most of the financials seem sound – the first quarter of 2019 the party spent over €1.4 million on electioneering, falling to 315,000-330,000 in the second and third quarters (much of the campaigning advertising and other activities were taken as read to apply to the May European election as well as the March general election), the biggest question mark hangs over its party dues estimates.
While it forecasts taking in €16,250 per quarter, in the first three quarters of 2019, it only took in a little more than this, at around €18,000. If this is repeated, the party could potentially still be in the red to the tune of around €40,000 at year end.
Centre was fined €250,000 last year as a penalty for receiving irregular donations, relating to the ongoing corruption trial of co-founder Edgar Savisaar, but this was largely suspended, and the party only had to pay around a tenth of that amount.
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Editor: Andrew Whyte