A Corrupt Kent Civil Service

An Open Letter to Sue McGonigal of TDC and Andy Mack District Auditor

Hi Sue and Andy

As the new TDC CE and former Finance Director and Auditor as you know I’m concerned at corruption within Thanet and Kent.

I’ve stood as MP and now Mayor on a "stop the pollution, stop the corruption, stop the construction" platform.

I’m astonished that you are reporting the TDC accounts are correct.

Clearly with now 2 Leaders resigned, political defections and one arrested – plus the senior KCC civil servant AWOL and corporate manslaughter charges and costs enquiries for expenses etc it’s astonishing.

Especially with:

• the 0% salary fraud and payoffs for failure of your predecessors
• TDC civil service staffing, salaries, expenses, pensions, benefits
• The stolen disabled grants used for carpeting your offices
• the unreleased costs on EKO: what seems to be a million pound meme for KCC and TDC to develop business parks – badly – on the rates
• the missing Manston fines: at least #2M
• political bungs eg ChinaGate donations
• Pleasurama Tax havens/mystery developments etc
• the missing Manston noise and air reports: for some 5 years now
• repeated overflights and an airport on the water supply endangering the public
• Thor mercury: banned but operating and unpublished toxin reports
• Where has Ramsgate’s #20M a year in council tax been spent?
• Ditto Tivoli Brook, Viking bay and Pegwell Bay

Clearly I hold you responsible for many of these serious failings: you have been in office in senior roles throughout this period.

Especially with Manston there have been deliberate attempts to downplay the environmental and public health dangers – hence emission levels 4x EU standards, banned planes and the ludicrous failure to allow overflights and the water supply dangers to continue.

Similarly every public consultation has been overwhelmingly against night flights – and repeated attempts to gain the opposite result.

Clearly whitewash and failure is not a valid use of public office - except to safeguard your own careers and pensions.

When will the figures and costs be published?

When will Manston and the S106 be closed?

When will the Police be called in?

I’ll publish this on my blog and forward to the Police, NHS and Southern Water and Cabinet for consideration.

My view is you should be fined and jailed and banned from public office for fraud and misuse of public office.

On a few minor points I note that:

• several depts have no service standards ie @we’ll reply when we like@
• the Commercial Property team and No use empty team have no budgets or grants etc – so presumably are being paid to do almost nothing
• the Port and Marina strategy is a year overdue
• the Margate Harbour flood defences seem flawed and dangerous
• Pfizer is due to lose 2,000 jobs in the next 12 months
• Dreamland remains derelict for another Summer?
• No 2012 activity or legacy activity exists
• the Caffyns vandalism development has c.40 flats and skyscraper cranes – when Thanet has 3,000 empty properties

These seem mere normal incompetence for a bottom 10% council but presumably for your Prime Minster-scale salaries and several years in office now you can advise on something better than staffing up with more civil servants, pay rises and no strategies of any merit other than random building?

Please advise.

Tim