I HOPE that no one was surprised last week when the Independents revealed that former Cllr Henig and his cronies had left the district's finances in a dreadful state.

The moment that a no-increase in the local rate was declared earlier this year, it was obvious that something very fishy was going on. It was impossible for an administration to have wasted so much money through irresponsible incompetence and inefficiency and still set a genuine no-increase rate. It was the worst kind of pre-election jiggery pokery. Those of us who saw the ploy for what it was urged as strongly as we could that, as soon as the so-called Labour group were booted out of office, the present incumbents should count the spoons to see how much of the family silver had gone missing. Now we know: the silver cupboard and all the other cupboards are bare with bills still to pay. But there are still questions to be answered and the most important of these is how much responsibility for the dreadful financial position can be laid at the door of Stan Henig and his mob and how much must the officers be answerable for. Surely it is the job of senior officers as well to insist on prudent financial management at all times and not to co-operate in what could appear to be politically motivated cover-ups.

After all, they justify their vastly inflated salaries on the grounds of the heavy responsibilities they bear in comparison with business. All I can say is, that the way things look, if the town hall operated on a truly commercial basis, they would have gone out of business or been given the boot years ago.

Mike Ford

Silverdale

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