Off the wire
• Urgent: DPRK fires submarine-launched ballistic missile  • 1st LD: Fire breaks out at plant substation in Florida, leaving thousands of people without power  • Canadian stocks reach week highs on bank earnings  • Police deployed in Mexico to protect monarch butterfly reserve  • Oil prices rebound as Iran may support OPEC output freeze  • Macedonia launches advanced payment fund for flood-hit families  • Iraqi ambassador's sons under investigation over beating Portuguese boy  • Brazil's interim president says Rio 2016 Olympics a success  • U.S. dollar mixed ahead of Yellen's speech  • UK response to attempted Ecuadoran embassy break-in "inadequate," says gov't  
You are here: 　 Home

Former Greenlandic PM expelled from party over credit card scandal

Xinhua, August 24, 2016 Adjust font size:

Aleqa Hammond, former Greenlandic prime minister and a member of the Danish parliament, was expelled on Tuesday from her social democratic Siumut party after the exposure of her misuse of the parliamentary credit card, local media reported.

Hammond has recently been accused of using a credit card issued by parliament for private purchase for over 12,983 Danish kroner (1,972 U.S. dollars), according to the Danish news agency Ritzau.

Hammond explained that she had used the parliamentary credit card because her own accounts had been blocked, Ritzau reported.

Parliamentary card is used when the politicians are in their official capacity, for example, to buy tickets or to pay for taxi.

Hammond's explanation however contradicted a bank statement showing that the card had been used in a construction market and in a supermarket in Nuuk for considerable sums, according to Ritzau.

"The executive committee (of Siumut) may announce that MP Aleqa Hammond's private consumption with the parliamentary credit card is unacceptable," Kim Kielsen, prime minister of Greenland and the current leader of Siumut party, was quoted by Ritzau as saying in a press release.

Formerly the leader of the Siumut party, Hammond became the Greenland's first female prime minister after winning the 2013 general elections.

She stepped down as prime minister and leader of Siumut in October 2014, following a case of misuse of public funds. Hammond was accused of spending around 106,000 kroner of public funds on private airline tickets and hotel stays for family members. She has admitted the irregularities, but insisted that it was out of "accounting errors".

Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark, is the biggest island in the world with around 57,000 inhabitants.

Greenland is largely self-governed, and Denmark maintains control of its foreign affairs and defense policy. Endit