Councillors are still plagued by rumours that they have been wasting ratepayer money on personal luxuries, even after releasing a report into their expenses.
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The report was released at the last council meeting and will continue to be printed on a quarterly basis into the future, but there are some in the community who are demanding to see previous year’s expenses.
One of them is Griffith Business Chamber’s Paul Pierotti, who wants to see at least five year’s worth of councillor expenses.
“It’s good to see council are finally disclosing this information for the first time, but they should have an obligation to do so retrospectively,” Mr Pierotti said.
He said many people in the community had come to him with suspicions around councillor credit card use over the years.
Mr Pierotti said ratepayers deserved to know how their money was being spent, and that council should have an obligation to be more transparent.
“I’m not saying they’ve done anything wrong, but if mayor John Dal Broi says there’s nothing to hide then what’s the problem?” he said.
Councillor Dal Broi said he was fed up with groundless rumours being flung around town, and that he had no intention of spending the time and money needed to write a retrospective report.
“I’m not going to instruct staff to spend days, perhaps weeks trying to please a couple of people who don’t understand how local government finance works,” Cr Dal Broi said.
“We’ve had a local audit committee in place now for over six years, and as a council we’ve been way ahead of the pack.
“Our credit cards are monitored very closely and if there were any discrepancies they would have shown up by now,” he said.