Londoners' Bill for European Social Forum Tops £1.1m
October 16, 2004 10:04 AM
New information revealed by the London Assembly Liberal Democrats shows that the European Social Forum (ESF) is being paid £130,000 early by Mayor Livingstone to bail out the organisation because of their 'cashflow position'.
The total bill for Londoners is now set to exceed £1.1million as new information revealed today shows that the Mayor is to pay at least an extra £190,000 to hire the Dome for delegates of the conference. Mr Livingstone is set to spend £670,000 of public money hosting the event and TfL will provide the first 20,000 delegates with free travel around London costing a further £440,000.
Organisations set to attend the event include groups who took part in the Mayday demonstrations including International Socialist Resistance and Globalise Resistance.
Graham Tope, Leader of the Liberal Democrat London Assembly Group said:
"Mr Livingstone must justify his reasons for spending such vast sums of taxpayers money on these type of events and explain clearly what benefit there will be to Londoners from this 'conference'.
"The Mayor has already promised to raise fares dramatically on public transport, yet he is happy to give 20,000 protesters free passes right across the capital. It is this extravagant spending that has caused Londoners to see their taxes under Mr Livingstone rocket."
Mr Livingstone has also used the internal magazine sent out to City Hall staff asking them to volunteer for the event, despite public servants being political restricted in their activities. Graham Tope continued:
"It is outrageous that the Mayor has the cheek to ask impartial public servants to take time off from their duties at City Hall to staff what is a clearly a political event, even if it is in their free time."
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