The Senate approved this Tuesday to prohibit the payment of per diems in cash. This has been approved by the institution's Board, as reported by La Sexta and confirmed by elDiario.es. The Upper House will also “require a certificate of bank ownership from senators to pay their salaries” and “from parliamentary groups their own account for the payment of subsidies.”
The three measures were approved this Tuesday, just two weeks after the PSOE spokesperson in Congress, Patxi López, revealed in a press conference that the Senate pays per diems to senators in cash. A way for the socialist leader to reduce the pressure on the cash payments received by the former Secretaries of the Organization today investigated for alleged corruption: José Luis Ábalos and Santos Cerdán.
Both the Senate and the ministries maintain a mixed system with cash payments for certain expenses. Specifically, these institutions pay advances for travel and maintenance, delivered in cash to members of the Government, although they also have the option for the money to be reimbursed by bank transfer.
The Senate also delivered travel allowances in envelopes with money. Until now. In a note, the Upper House announces that “the payment of the senators' salaries” will be made “into an account in their name.” “In this way,” he continues, “each senator must notify this account number to the Senate Department of Budget Management through a certificate of bank ownership.”
The institution assures that the reform allows it to “comply with the demands derived from the transparency of public activity and compliance with the constitutional guarantee of the perception of an allocation by parliamentarians.” The Constitution was approved in 1978.
The Senate gives senators a period of “three months” to update their banking information. And he justifies that “until now, these payments were made in cash with the objective of facilitating the availability of funds to senators and officials to subsidize the expenses derived from official trips immediately and always before the trip took place.”
That is, the Senate advanced senators and officials cash before the expense occurred. A system that, according to the Upper House itself, has been carried out “from the constituent Legislature to the current one and “in a completely transparent manner and in accordance with the regulations for the execution of expenditure.”
In the note, the Senate explains how the current system works: “For each payment, a prior economic file is prepared, which includes all the relevant elements thereof (recipient, concept, days of travel, amount, etc.). The material payment in cash is the final act of said file. In turn, the Senate Budget credits are financed with releases from the Public Treasury, through the Bank of Spain, materialized through duly documented transfers. Since the 10th Legislature, both the amount of the allowances and the number of Senators who have made official trips in each legislature are public data, reinforcing transparency.”
The Upper House has also increased control over parliamentary groups so that “parliamentary groups must communicate a NIF specific to the group and an account different from those with which the reference political party operates.”
Furthermore, according to the Senate, “in said account, the credits and charges relating to the economic-financial activity of the parliamentary group will be recorded.”