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Friday 9 August 2013

TransEuropa Debt Thanet Council's Accounts Challenged

Green Party Councillor, Ian Driver, is challenging  Thanet District Council’s accounts for 2012-13
“Under the terms of the Audit Commission Act 1998, I will be  writing to the District Auditor and Council’s Chief Executive  to object to the Council’s management of the of the £3.3 million debt owed to the Council by Transeuropa Ferries and its associated companies”
“It is my belief that  the payment deferral agreement between Thanet Council,  TransEuropa Ferries and three other associated companies, which led to the running up of this astronomic debt, was unlawful. I also have extremely serious concerns about how the payment deferral process was managed by senior Council officers and politicians of both main parties. I am  particularly concerned about  the secrecy surrounding this agreement and possible breaches of the Council’s constitution”.
“I have met with the Council’s external auditors  today to ask questions about the accounts and to seek their guidance on how to formally object. I will be submitting my formal objections in the next few days and intend to publish a copy on my blogsite”.
“To formally challenge the Council’s accounts is an extremely serious matter which I am not taking lightly. However, I am convinced that Thanet Council  has acted unlawfully, has mis-managed public public money  and should be held to account for its actions”  
"Driver is  also complaining to the Information Commissioner about Thanet Council’s refusal to allow him  to see secret internal  documents relating to the TransEuropa debt. "For the past 10 weeks I have been asking  to see all the  Transeuropa debt documents. However, apart from  minor and  insignificant documents,  the Council has refused my requests, which leads me to wonder what they have to hide.  I have now contacted the Information Commissioner and hope that he will order the Council to hand the documents over to me.  If he does, I will publish the documents and let the people of Thanet decide for themselves if their Council and Councillors have managed public money in a responsible way.
 

5 comments:

  1. Long delays give more time to shred the evidence. Must be a que of fast shredder salemen around Hawley Square.

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  2. They don't bother wiring the dodgy stuff down as they think that protects them. but if they're a bureaucracy and have no written record then they're fired for negligence etc.

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  3. Even the executives at Thanet can't shred what never existed.

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  4. Sounds like an FoI request to me - "Please could you provide me with the contractual agreements between TDC and TransEuropa etc. which allowed those companies to stop paying the fees which were due." I would expect any such contractual agreements to specify the period of time for which fees could be withheld, to clearly state that the fees were NOT being waived and the loan terms payable on the outstanding fees (i.e. the interest rate and the method of calculating it). Unfortunately, I would also expect your FoI request to meet with a blank response because I don't think TDC entered into any formal agreement to waive fees. I think it was all done on a nod and a wink with no proper consideration of when the outstanding fees would be repaid or how much interest would have to be paid on the outstanding debt. I would love to be able to write off millions of pounds of other people's money without having to write anything down to explain what I was doing. In the words of Mel Brookes "Gee, it's great to be the King."

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  5. But who was doing the nod and wink? It seems to be mcgoinigal, harvey, Clive, Bayford, Wise and Everitt. Anyone else involved or do they just decide everything in secret with our money?

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