Latest update September 13th, 2026 10:36 AM
Is this a bogus audit of City Council?
Dear Editor,
I see a newspaper report two days ago in which the City Council’s Public Relations Officer is boasting that ‘The AG’s office is to help the M&CC to audit its Treasurer’s Department.’ If indeed true, this would be exhilarating news. But then again one has to wonder why the M&CC is attempting to direct the Auditor General’s office, which department and where they should audit? The entire Council needs auditing.
She alludes to what she refers to as the commencement of human resource auditing, which sounds nice and transparent, but such an exercise would be a complete waste of time if this audit does reveal the enormous amount of nepotism, cronyism and favoritism that exists there. A huge chunk of staff particularly the more recent appointments consists of relatives and friends of Councillors and senior officers of the municipality. An audit should reveal that and have those persons removed and replaced by competent non aligned persons as this undermines the common good of the Council.
However, what really needs to be audited as well is the tax waivers given by one Councillor to tardy taxpayers last year under the guise of an amnesty. It was irresponsible to give one Councillor discretionary authority to grant commercial and corporate property owners a 50% to 75% amnesty, dependent on special circumstances as they put it. It turns out that this person even gave 100% amnesty in contradiction to the guidelines to some persons. What needs to be audited are the cleaning contracts that were given out to some Councillors and or their children and to friends of senior officers. What needs to be audited is the wanton expenditure embarked upon such as buying several new vehicles, refurbishing of offices, etc, etc and the list goes on. The announcement by the Council’s PRO of an audit taking place at Council is merely window dressing. I hope that when the new Council comes into place they would demand a real audit.
Mark Roopan
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