Center Party wants to pay back forbidden donation in installments
Center Party secretary general Mihhail Korb made a proposal to the Political Parties Financing Surveillance Committee (ERJK), in which the party asked for permission to pay back €110,100 in forbidden donations in 12 instalments because paying the sum in total is not financially viable.
ERR News wrote on June 17 that the Supreme Court found that the Center Party's inadequate accounting in 2014 and 2015 did not allow for the confirmation of the source of cash deposited in the party's account. The Supreme Court explained in its decision that parties' role in forming the parliament and in governing the state requires the full transparency of a party's finances.
Based on the Political Parties Act, in 2017, the ERJK issued a precept ordering the Center Party to pay a forbidden donation of €110,100 into the state budget.
On Monday, Korb wrote to the ERJK: " The Center Party is asking to pay the donations back in instalments because a one-time transfer of €110,110 is practically impossible, taking into account the funds currently available."
The party, through Korb, asked the committee to develop a 12-month equal-part instalment schedule, which would begin on July 6, 2020, with due dates on the 6th of every month thereafter.
Liisa Oviir, head of ERJK, told ERR the committe has gone over the proposal but will make its decision collectively at their next meeting on July 16.
Oviir said: "What caught my eye regarding the proposal is that when the decision from the Supreme Court came, we told the Center Party they should set the money aside, which to my knowledge, they did. We'll be able to ask them what the situation exactly is."
Between January 1, 2014 and June 30, 2015, the Center Party deposited a total of €110,100 in cash into the party's bank account, the origin of which was unknown to the committee.
Both the ERJK and an ERJK-appointed auditor had demanded accounting source documents from the complainant, the party did not produce them. As it was not possible for the ERJK to determine the source of the cash deposited by the party, the committee deemed the money to be an anonymous and thus forbidden donation.
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Editor: Kristjan Kallaste