Parliament clarifies MPs are responsible for hotel bills
OFFICE of the National Parliament says the three Members of Parliament (MP) that have incurred more than $900, 000 in hotel charges are responsible to settle their own bills.
Clerk to the National Parliament Clezy Rore yesterday clarified this following revelation last week that three MPs and government Ministers namely David Dei Pacha, Augustine Auga and Bartholomew Parapolo have incurred more than $900, 000 in hotel bills for their accommodation and food at the Heritage Park Hotel.
Yet they refused to settle the bills and instead forwarded the bills to the Prime Ministers Office and the Parliament Office to settle it for them
But speaking to the paper, Mr Rore said the housing entitlements of 50 Members of Parliament (MP) have been disbursed to them after becoming a MP, therefore those who are being accommodated at hotels are responsible to pay for own their bills.
Mr Rore confirmed this from his accounts department that what Parliament obliged to meet was already released to the MPs, which covered the housing entitlement of SBD$15,000.00 per month for each MP.
“Any other charges beside that housing allowance we don’t budget for it, but at least we have not failed our part,” he said.
He highlighted that hotel accommodations are very expensive and the MPs’ housing package is not enough, so they should look for houses to rent, instead of staying in luxurious hotels.
“We have played our part so we have nothing to do with the MPs accommodation bills,” the clerk stated.
“The MPs themselves are responsible for their hotel bills because we already released to them their housing allowance,” Rore stated.
Meanwhile the Heritage Park Hotel management has refuted claims the SBD$900,000.00 bill incurred by the three government Ministers for their accommodation at the Hotel recently is a make-up.
The hotel’s General Manager (GM) Sanjay Bhargava clarified this following claim by the Special Secretary to Prime Minister’s Office Rence Sore.
Speaking to the Solomon Star yesterday Mr Bhargava said, that there is no such thing as cooked up bills, as claimed since their business operates on a system that automatically accounts itself for service provided.
The GM explained d that their system is not manual for them to claim that the bills were cooked in order to get more than what their service deserved.
“We cannot cheat our customers because we’re operated on a system that provides the bills by itself for the service used in the hotel,” Bhagava stated. “We can’t say anything about it because this is what comes out from our system,” he added.
The General Manager added they were shocked to read in the news stating that their hotel bills were created according to someone’s’ imaginations, without considering terrible financial situation imposed by these unpaid bills on their operation, which the three ministers obliged to pay.
He added the given figure of SBD$900,000.00 for the hotel bill is real and nobody invented this, but their system itself captured these service charges incurred by those MPs.
Mr Bhargava appealed to these three MPs to pay up their bills as soon as possible because their business desperately needs money to sustain its operation.
By AATAI JOHN
