Junket to Chicago
22 May 2008
"The revelation that Belfast City Council is using PEACE II Extension money to send almost a quarter of its members on a week long visit to Chicago, raises fundamental issues of accountability and proper use of public funds.
I am very far from being a serial critic of the City Council, knowing that their EU unit - with whom I have been happy to work - has done much good work, but, frankly, I see nothing in this extravagance which could warrant such waste of valuable public resources. It is exactly this type of waste which has given PEACE funding a bad name, particularly at a time when many worthy community and voluntary groups are crying out for funds and have seen their applications rejected. Whether in the women's sector, the victims' sector or the voluntary sector I can think of many groups who have seen good projects rejected and whose funding is running out in a few weeks. In these circumstances, to find 11 Councillors going on PEACE money to Chicago is quite staggering.
Questions arise as to how this project came to be approved by Belfast LSP, a body where councillors form the largest single block (7 out of 20 places on its board), whether it properly fits within the approved project, why Chicago, rather than Bradford, is being visited to look at inter-racial tensions and why, if justified at all, one councillor from each party would not suffice?
I certainly intend to explore with SEUPB its view of such squandering of PEACE funding and how it thinks it will fare with EU auditing requirements, not least since at yesterday's Peace Monitoring Committee the Commission representative warned about the need to ensure funds are allocated with "due diligence" since the Court of Auditors is applying pressure in this regard."
ENDS
