THE Chief Minister is to ‘maintain a commitment’ to go ahead with the Ask the Ministers event this week despite criticism that the broadcast is being held too close to the election.
Senator John Le Fondré is due to feature in the panel discussion, in which members of the public can directly question ministers, tomorrow at 7pm, alongside Deputy Chief Minister Lyndon Farnham.
The timing of the event has been criticised by the leader of Reform Jersey, Senator Sam Mézec, who believes the event comes too close to the June election.
In a tweet posted on social media, he wrote: ‘It is not appropriate for taxpayers’ money to fund these kinds of self-promotion broadcasts right at the start of an election campaign.
‘Unless of course they invite the opposition to present an alternative perspective. I suspect that’s not on the cards!’
The post received a number of comments in agreement.
When the JEP asked the Chief Minister whether he felt that it was appropriate to go ahead with the event, he said: ‘This week’s Ask the Ministers was originally scheduled for late March and maintains a commitment by the Chief Minister made in the Assembly on 29 March.’
Last year he revealed that each one of the Ask the Ministers events had a budget of £3,599.
He said: ‘This figure has been calculated by dividing the total projected budget across all eight events and includes the initial studio set-up incurred ahead of the first event.
‘It should be noted that much of the equipment and backdrop sourced for the Ask the Ministers events can be used flexibly, and will therefore also be available for press conferences, other government departments and arms-length organisations with some cost recovery applied on the latter. The figure therefore represents a maximum cost as the utilisation of the equipment by government or by arms length organisations will further reduce the cost per event.’
