Prepare For A Cover Up!

Barnet bloggers Rog T and Statler & Waldorf have written excellent articles about the deeply worrying comments made by new Chief Executive Nick Walkley in a piece in the Barnet Times about the council’s Icelandic investments.

In an astonishing statement, Mr Walkley has effectively cleared council leader Mike Freer of any wrongdoing. But hold on a minute! We haven’t had the external investigation yet. I thought it was only in the former Soviet Bloc where the results of an official investigation were known before the inquiry had even started!

Mr Walkley was previously the council’s Executive Director for Resources. Wouldn’t he have been involved in decisions affecting how £2 billion of our money was invested? According to the council’s web site:

Nick was the Executive Director of Resources at the Council until last year, where his responsibilities included the Council’s Finance, Human Resources, Property, Customer Care, Organisational Development, Project Management, Revenues and Performance Management arrangements.

It seems to me that Mr Walkley has a rather obvious conflict of interest and should have no further involvement in this matter.

If we are to learn the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, then a completely independent external investigation must be carried out and the Board of Inquiry must be allowed complete unfettered access to every document and every person who was involved in devising and implementing the council’s treasury management strategy.

Anything less will be a cover up.