Councillor calls for Leader to resign over Scarlet land sale

County Councillor Sian Caiach has called for the immediate resignation of the leader of the council, Kevin Madge, over the £850,000 land deal between Carmarthenshire Council and Scarlets Regional Ltd.

The whole issue, particularly the curious deductions and the ‘allowable expenses’, is now the subject of a complaint to the Wales Audit Office.

Cllr Caiach, who has also been trying to discover the truth of the matter has issued an open letter (below) to Kevin Madge following the revelations released under the Freedom of Information Act, which featured in an article in last week’s Western Mail.

OPEN LETTER TO KEVIN MADGE , leader of Carmarthenshire County Council

Dear Kevin,

Your explanation of the actions in the Car Park sale is that it wasn’t you, it was an Executive decision of all ten leading councillors, you hint, to give £650,000 quietly to the Scarlets and hope no-one noticed? Did they really indicate that it was their intention for Carmarthenshire County Council to give money from the sale to the Scarlets to pay a debt to Henry Davidson Developments Ltd to fit out the shop units in Eastgate?

I doubt it.

Even if it was a whole executive decision, you are still accountable. If it was an executive board project, why hide the resulting details from them?

When informed of the large share of £650,000 given to the Scarlets, you did nothing. You told no-one.

Also, since the £280,000 debt repayment grant, which surely could not be a legal expense of the sale, is above our EU State Aid three year threshold for donations limit to this private company, you should have informed the EU.

Did you inform the EU Commission before giving this exceptional disbursement to the Scarlets? No record of such action has been released.

I believe that you did not give a factual report of this allocation of the sale proceeds to your own Executive or to the Council as a whole, despite being made fully aware of the details of the sale division by Cllr Jeff Edmunds.

I have already suggested to you that you were deliberately hiding the news that the Scarlets had been given sums well over the amount our own officers recommended, finally backing down in the face of the firm insistence of our own chief executive Mr Mark James.

In fact Cllr Jeff Edmunds told me that he felt that had he not stood fast in supporting our £200,000 share, Mr James could well have pushed through a lesser sum for us and given more public money to the Scarlets. You pay Mark James a huge salary to work for us, not to give away our money to the Scarlets.

The Executive may have been under the illusion that the sale of the lease was going to be an open and lawful transaction and fair apportionment of the proceeds. It seems that you have fully supported Mr James in this matter from the start.

Your reluctance to release the facts about this sale, refusing my FOIA request as to where the “missing” £650,000 had gone when only £200,000 turned up in our accounts is deeply suspicious. It was only Cllr Jeff Edmunds, clearly dubious about aspects of the deal, who eventually decided to be open about where the money had gone.

What public good is served by all this concealment? When my constituents tell me that they cannot trust their council, as they have increasingly as of late, what can I tell them? What is the point of our code of conduct when neither the public nor your Councillors can trust what we are told?

You have not explained your actions in this case. As Leader of Council you are ultimately responsible for the actions of this Authority. You are responsible for this deal, a sale of a public asset primarily to support the local regional rugby team.

We could have got perhaps another £200,000 or more from this sale if you and the Chief Executive had actually cared for the needs of the people we serve rather than the desire of a sports team to reduce their debts through public funds?

We could have had more than £200,000 less to cut next year if you had decided differently. Have you not once considered the consequences of your actions? We are in an economic recession and many of our people are poor and suffering and frankly, we have neither the time nor the resources to waste on petty expenditures and political power games.

If the council were a business that could safely pursue profit and connections without a thought to the public, this would be nothing but a simple bungle. But we are not a business. We have a duty to serve our people first and foremost, and particularly those who are weakest and most in need of our aid. Not private sports teams, not building companies, and not ourselves.

Whatever motivations there were for this stupid, stupid decision and all the wasted efforts of covering up and hiding the details that have followed, it needs to end now.

To me this appears to be maladministration in public office. You were not there when the decision was made and may not have had prior warning of what idiocy was planned. But when informed of it you deliberately concealed the transaction from both Councillors and the public.

You could have stopped in hours what has wasted a year of our time and money, but you chose not to. Why did you do this?

If you were bullied, if you were ashamed, fearful of reprisal, or even if you are really more sympathetic to giving money to the Scarlets than keeping it for the people who elected you, it doesn’t matter.

You have acted despicably, ignoring your commitment to the Nolan Principles of honesty, accountability, openness, objectivity, transparency and leadership.

I ask again for your immediate resignation.

Councillor Sian Caiach

People First – Gwerin Gyntaf

Carmarthenshire County Councillor for Hengoed Ward,

Llanelli.