Taxpayers face losing up to £200 million after a council 'gambled' more than half a billion pounds on a green energy scheme run by a fast-living financier, the Daily Mail can reveal.
Good lord, what incompetent council is th...
Cash-strapped Thurrock Council in Essex...
/facepalm
You'd think, wouldn't you, that in Essex of all places they'd be able to spot a wide-boy chancer coming a mile off?
...borrowed £655million of public money – the equivalent of triple what it spends on services each year – to invest in 53 solar farms across the UK.
It agreed a series of deals with globe-trotting businessman Liam Kavanagh, whose integrity was later questioned by a High Court judge over £5million his company banked in 'commission'.Thurrock hoped the huge investment would generate millions in extra income but independent consultants hired by the council have privately warned that the solar farms are worth far less than required to recoup their cash.
They also raised concerns about the use of a £138million top-up investment made by Thurrock – approved after a series of meetings at London's five-star May Fair hotel between Mr Kavanagh and the council's finance chief – which does not appear to have gone into the farms. And the latest £12.5million interest payment owed to the council is months overdue, an investigation by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism has found.
Want to bet who will be sacked and face jail time for this, Reader?
I thought one of the justifications for the ridiculous salaries paid to these council 'executives' was that they need to attract the best brains. Well they have patently failed in that as so many councils are full of unsuccessful (or never attempted) 'entrepreneurs' who are only too happy to gamble with other peoples tax money, so they can appear clever. So many councils borrow money to squander on such ill-judged 'investments' that only seem to line cronies pockets, and then end up losing the lot, when they would have been better advised to invest in local infrastructure/facilities, or even (shock, horror) cut the council taxes as well as their inflated salaries.
ReplyDeleteI meant to add: Two of my favourite sections of Private eye is 'Rotten Boroughs', which regularly exposes the hypocrisy of those in power, and the yearly awards for those that excel in their criminality. What a surprise that few ever seem to appear in court!
ReplyDeleteSacked:- garbage collectors, road mending crews, people who fix the street lighting etc etc. Jail time. A few unfortunates who can't pay the huge increas in council tax.
ReplyDeleteLiam, obviously a believer in WC Fields' maxim :-
ReplyDeleteIt is morally wrong to let a sucker keep his (or his employers') money.
But fear not. I am sure that lessons will be learned.
This has happened many times. A council stick up a windmill or few, or some solar panels at excessive expense and then it all goes quiet.
And then there were the council's that thought that Icelandic banks offering high interest rates was an opportunity too good to miss.