Council pay scandal: It is vital lessons are learned
AFTER more than seven years, the senior officers’ pay scandal at Labour-run Caerphilly County Borough Council has finally been brought to a conclusion.
A huge amount of public money has gone down the drain. Since 2012, the ruling Labour administration has presided over a saga – which when you take into account huge pay rises for senior officers which sparked the controversy – has cost taxpayers well over £6m.
Chief Executive Anthony O’Sullivan received more than £1m in wages and pension payments over this time. Each and every household in the borough has paid an estimated £85. You really couldn’t make it up!
Money has been spent on paying senior officers to stay at home as well as legal and audit fees when it should have been spent on frontline services, such as keeping public toilets open, keeping street lights on and securing the future of all our leisure centres. The losers have been the residents of the county borough.
It is vital lessons are learnt and this never, ever happens again. A future Plaid Cymru administration would run the authority properly to ensure that.
There is also a clear need for the Welsh Government to urgently review the law on internal disciplinary proceedings, so this farcical situation is not repeated elsewhere. Colin Mann,
Leader, Plaid Cymru group, Caerphilly County Borough Council
Businesses are victims of theft
YOU left out a very important fact in the Echo article of September 27 (“Businesses want action on anti-social behaviour”) – the number of thefts from their businesses. I’m in Cardiff a couple of times a week, you hear and see them with their bags bragging to one another how they’ve just “done” a whole shelf of shampoo in Boots, just scooped up the whole shelf into a bag and left.
I waited in Primark while the assistant went to the stockroom for me and one of these rough sleepers came in and four pairs of sandals and were gone in a flash into the arcade. There was no-one around to alert the staff.
Just this week I walked into Tesco at the bottom of Queen Street when a rough sleeper came across the road and into the shop. I was still in the doorway looking for my list while he went around the counter twice, saw no staff about and picked up a case of beer and walked out. I alerted a lady by the checkout and when he came back in again he could hear us saying “that’s him” and he left empty-handed. I bet that was not the last he had.
D James
Cardiff
No influence in Europe in 40 years
I WRITE in response to Mr Bryan D Prescott’s letter of September 26 (Echo, “There’s a lot to be angry about”).
As a Christian, my Bible indicates that we are living in the Laodicean age; laodicea actually means “people’s opinions” and it was the opinion of 17.4 million people that desired to leave the unelected, undemocratic and godless institution of the European Union and I will certainly not apologise for being a “leaver”.
I would inform him that many of such mind as myself who voted knew the pros and cons and could therefore also feel angry at the fact that this present Parliament with its political dinosaurs have done everything in their power to thwart the will of the people and prevent the result of the democratic referendum.
My dictionary says the word democracy means “government by people as a whole through elected representatives” but, sadly, the Liberal un-Democrats, the Welsh Labour party, Plaid Cymru and the Green Party do not understand that or choose to ignore it.
These politicians are all hypocrites. They are pleased to accept their £84k per annum plus perks and expenses under the banner of the political party of which they were elected by the people, to put into operation the wish of the majority and then act with all their power against those wishes. Should there be an election we who voted leave must therefore show our disgust by voting them out at the ballot box.
I could also feel angry at his comments that we are abdicating our leadership role in Europe. Does he not realise that we have had no influence whatsoever in more than 40 years and they have implemented laws which we cannot overturn and have no jurisdiction over.
Our forefathers, many who gave their young lives including my grandfather, did not fight to hand over our sovereignty to Germany and France, whose aims and motives are to control.
Judith Milsom Caerphilly
There is a clear need for the Welsh Government to urgently review the law Colin Mann, leader, Plaid Cymru group, Caerphilly Council
Crime also abuses our human rights
THE Left trawl around for issues they think will validate their positions. Extinction Rebellion seeks to drag us all into the past with lives based on medieval subsistence farming – average of male death about 40-45.
However, in South Wales there has been much flag-waving and legal submissions on facial recognition. It is supposed to abuse our human rights; but so, too, does all forms of crime and foul misbehaviour. It is supposed to rob us of our right to go wherever we will without being studied and identified or not.
But out there on the roads, camera systems work 24 hours a day to look at car numberplates and identify if the vehicle is in lawful hands or stolen.
Also, whether or not a vehicle is known to be in the hands of drug traffickers, thieves, rapists or worse.
On an average journey to South Wales or the Midlands I would expect to see cars and trucks on the hard shoulders with police vehicles in attendance (plain or ID).
Crime in my World War II youth in and around Cardiff was, by comparison, far less complex than today. Illegal bookies tapped on the shoulder from time to time for “your turn” before a magistrate. Relatively few private cars, no TV sets and a radio if you were lucky. Our news came via the Echo and the Sunday Express. There was violence of course; murders yes; thefts yes. All within the capability of the Cardiff police force. Today the policing challenges are multiple and complex.
So as a citizen with nothing to hide I, for one, have not the slightest exception to the police and security services using facial recognition kit to spotlight the nasty elements who wish to suck out our faith in society and public safety.
If facial and moving vehicle recognition systems enable our police forces to work more efficiently, then I’m all for it.
One caveat: in the wrong hands it could be a tool of a dominant political clique treating us all as slaves.
We are demonstrably not slaves for most of us are proud of our freedoms and have no desire to lose them. Eternal vigilance is always needed.
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