That was decided by the Independent Party Transparency Senate (UPTS) in the Federal Chancellery. For formal reasons, however, the procedure due to the expenses of ex-party leader Heinz-Christian Strache will be discontinued with a notice published on Friday. Reason: The Court of Auditors had not consulted an auditor to clarify the allegations.
Cross-financing by the educational institute cost the FP 103,000 euros last year. The cause is quickly explained: the party had hired two accountants who also worked for the Freedom Education Institute (FBI) and the Neue Freie Zeitung (NFZ). Although the accountants administered a significantly higher budget for the party, most of the costs were paid for by the educational institute.
From the perspective of the UPTS, this represents a prohibited donation from the party academy to the FP. After the party had already paid a fine for 2017, one has now also become due for 2018. According to the Senate’s calculation, the FP would have had to bear significantly higher personnel costs again this year (166,500 instead of just 80,000 euros). The difference has now been imposed as a new fine.
Another fine, on the other hand, has a more symbolic effect. This was announced because the then Interior Minister Herbert Kickl organized a competition in 2018 on his Facebook page operated by the ministry. As a prize, he praised a joint visit to the New Year’s meeting of the FP. The Senate evaluated the posting, which reached 98,600 Facebook users, as a prohibited donation in kind from the Ministry to the party and set the fine in view of the range at 500.
For formal reasons, however, the proceedings were discontinued because of the payment of expenses for the former party leader Strache by the Vienna FP. The Senate agreed in principle with the Court of Auditors that the expenses also included expenses for the private life of the party leader, which should not actually be attributed to the party. Therefore, there were “concrete indications of an inaccuracy of the statement of accounts” of the party for the year 2018.
However, this will not have any consequences for the FP for the time being. Because the Senate ruled that the Court of Auditors should first have the allegations examined by an auditor. But this has not been done. The FP should have given this auditor access to all necessary documents, as the Senate writes in its decision. The Senate, however, was denied this insight, which is why the amount of the expenses that would be ascribed to “private life” is unclear. The FP put this amount with reference to a special audit report for 2018 as “probably” 1,795.80 euros.
The decision is not final. The FP can lodge a complaint with the Federal Administrative Court within four weeks. From the office of party leader Herbert Kickl, on APA request, it was said that the judgment would first be analyzed and then a decision on how to proceed.
