Yesterday afternoon Salford City Mayor Ian Stewart was forced to go on tv to defend his actions, while putting out an official statement surrounding the scandal of secret match day subsidies of up to £164,000 for the Salford City Reds/Salford Red Devils (For full background on the scandal see previous Salford Star article – click here)
The Mayor's statement began...
"The audit report shows that actions taken were in line with policies and procedures but there were errors made in the completion of the paperwork. I welcome the recommendations and as a result we will strengthen our governance and decision making processes even further.
"The report has provided opportunities by some to criticise a decision made and I would like to explain the background. There is currently a lot of confusion and misinformation about the AJ Bell Stadium, Salford Red Devils and Salford City Council's involvement with them.
"The strong leadership I and the City Council showed in 2013 by making this decision has safeguarded our stadium, our rugby club and importantly the return of the city's £1.5 million loan to the club. This has all been done in the best interests of the people of Salford and the long term regeneration of the city. It is clear that the local government rules would not have allowed us to use the money invested in this agreement to support frontline services.
"I fully understand that people may find it difficult to understand why the council supported a rugby league club and stadium..."etc etc See the full statement – click here
The Salford Star responds:
1) Mr Stewart if you are so confident that it was just a `paperwork error' why did you not attend the Audit Committee meeting and allow yourself to be open to questioning?
2) If it was a mere `paperwork error', why did you send an email to your legal people and Manchester Chief Exec Howard Bernstein in September 2013 stating "this appears to me to be a serious matter. It may be that we should call in the District Auditor perhaps even the police. In any case it is my view that it demands a serious investigation"?
3) Why did you wait until September to send that email when, as your people said in the report and at the Audit Meeting, you were fully aware of the decision and actually made that decision - in July?
4) Why did you not disclose these emails during the ten month investigation into the scandal?
5) Why did your Labour councillors block any discussion of these emails at the Audit Committee meeting?
6) According to reports, the day after the emails were sent you met Ben Dolan to discuss the dodgy dealings and Mr Dolan assured you all was ok. Why was Ben Dolan involved in writing the Audit Report when he was right in the middle of the scandal? It appears that he was investigating a case in which he was a central character. How could the report be `independent'?
7) As far as your argument about not cutting front line services for the vulnerable, even if this payment hadn't gone ahead, you know as well as us that the vast loans for `capital' payments are serviced with `revenue' funding which does pay for front line services - if you're not sure about this see previous Salford Star article – click here
8) What do you and your senior staff have to fear from an external Independent Inquiry? If there was just a `paperwork error' then such an inquiry will surely clear everyone's name and we can all say `Sorry' to you and hail you as a great leader of Salfordians? Until there is an Independent Inquiry the stench of wrongdoing will always hang over you.
* See also Salford Star report on the Audit Committee meeting - click here
...and the live broadcast from the Audit Committee meeting - click here
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