Communications authority: TV licence records are public documents

Åland Minister of Culture neglects TV licence for ten years

Camilla Gunell

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Rauni Hagman, director-general of the Finnish Communications Regulatory Authority (FICORA) says that information on who has paid a television licence fee is a matter of public record.
      In Hagman's view, officials are allowed to disclose who has paid for a television licence. However, failure to pay a licence fee may not be disclosed.
      The television licence fees, which are mandatory for households with a television set, are the main source of income for public service broadcasting in Finland.
     
A number of media outlets have requested information on the payment of television licences by politicians. Hagman says that answers will be forthcoming later this week.
      Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen (Centre) recently urged government ministers not to respond to journalists' inquiries on whether or not they had paid the licence fee, or paid for domestic services without paying tax.
      The issue arose after two ministers in Sweden's new government had to resign following revelations of failure to pay the TV licence, and other similar violations.
     
In the semi-autonomous Åland Islands, the province's Minister of Culture Camilla Gunell was found to have neglected to pay her television fee for the past ten years.
      Gunell told the local media that her failure to pay the tax had been an oversight on her part, and not a political boycott.
      She said that when she realised that she had not paid the licence fee she contacted officials in charge of the matter, and now she expects to have to pay all of the missing fees.
      "Politicians' actions need to be monitored, and they must answer for their actions", Gunell told the local newspaper Nya Åland.
      Gunell, a Social Democrat,  has been in her post since 2005. Local residents seem to be taking a sympathetic view of her predicament. There have been no calls for her resignation. This is at least partly attributed to the fact that she admitted the lapse openly, and did not try to hide the fact, as the Swedish ministers are said to have done.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Journalists dumbfounded by Vanhanen´s instructions to ministers (17.10.2006)
  PM urges ministers not to answer questions of minor tax evasion and TV licence fee dodging (16.10.2006)

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