WDC budget

Published: 3:29 PM April 20, 2009 Updated: 9:34 PM October 10, 2020

I AM following with interest the �8.9m Waveney District Council could be forced to repay to the Department of Work and Pensions. For it would appear that in the future I, and other council taxpayers, will have to pay for this 'mismanagement'.

For I quote Alan McFarlane, Waveney's director of resources (April 10): 'People involved in the project were held accountable and appropriate action was taken as a consequence of that mismanagement.'

I wonder whether those held accountable will now include Mark Bee and will he be doing the decent thing and resign given the amount of money involved and that this has happened over the last five years he has been leader of the council?

For in a recent letter printed in The Journal together with his Cabinet members stated: 'Let us be clear: this is not money that has been lost or wrongly paid out. This relates to benefit payments that recipients have been entitled to.'

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However I quote again Mr McFarlane who is now reported as saying: 'We haven't squandered the money. It's not gone missing and by and large it's not been paid out wrongly.'

I think the words 'by and large' seem very ambiguous to me and not at all clear and seems an admission that Waveney Council has not got a clue whether all the money was paid out to people entitled to it and Mr Bee's and his cabinet's previous statement was nothing but political spin.