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Commonwealth Games: Forensic Audit Needed |
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Written by Al Hollingsworth
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Saturday, 15 March 2008 |
I didn’t know the members of Halifax Commonwealth Games Committee were street people. They must have been, because we bought them clothes and even luggage for travelling. Freddie MacGillivary a squeegie kid? Maybe so, for as we know, some of them do wear hoodies, making it hard to see their faces.
How else do you explain the suits of Argyle Street spending $8,350.80 of our precious tax dollars on clothing from Vogue Men’s Wear and $821.37 story on luggage from Kelly’s?. These and other more startling figures became public last week thanks to an outstanding piece of journalism by Tim Bousquet of The Coast. According to Bousquet, committee members even wrote 26 cheques to some outfit named Quickies. I’ll wager disgraced New York Governor Eliot Spitzer didn’t have that many quickies.
The article, Public money, private players should be required reading for every Nova Scotia taxpayer (log on to http://www.thecoast.ca and be prepared to throw up) . Can you imagine what 8.5 million dollars could do, if used in a prudent manner? We couldn’t afford $30,000 for drugs to extend the life of a Lower Sackville wife and mother but we can afford to let these guys piddle away nearly 9 million dollars.
Is that too tough or too crass a term? Not really. Here’s a sampling of the good life, folks. Fun and games with the hard-earned tax dollars we regularly cough up to the various levels of government:
Pacifica Bar & Grill $354.38
Thirsty Duck $942.47
Murphy’s on the Water $1,796.53
The Old triangle ?
Henry House?
Montreal grill ?
Soho Kitchen ?
MacAskills ?
La Perla ?
Ducky’s ?
Salvatore’s
Stayner’s ?
Windows (WTC) $6,400.71
And this partial list accounts for only the local wining and dining.
Seniors like me pay a double tax. We were taxed on our gross earnings during our working years, and now the pension monies we contributed to with these dollars are taxed again. And this is how our money is used!
If both opposition parties don’t take these figures and hammer the government until they get a complete breakdown (with names) on the cheques, and a firm commitment for a forensic audit, then none of them are worth their salt and should all be tossed at the first opportunity.
According to Bousquet’s article, the audit carried out when the Committee wrapped up for good was purely an exercise in assigning categories to the money spent. It was not to assess whether those expenditures were appropriate. Well, it’s high time we found out.
This whole sordid mess has been shrouded in secrecy from day one. The air must be cleared.
In the words of the legendary Glace Bay councillor from Donkin, Angus MacDonald, who once suggested, “ It’s not going to be like the year 19 –aught-10 when the RCMP walked in here on horseback and we sat down and stood for it.” Nope - the sitting down and standing for it days are over.
(Al Hollingsworth is a retired journalist who believes that if you keep robbing Peter to pay Paul, Peter is eventually going to get ticked off!)
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