"Standards were not met" - Concerns remain over Council's management of €20 million
Waterford City and County Council have defended against the issues raised in recent audits surrounding the management of over €20 million.
Commissioned by the National Transport Authority, the audits found the Council's record keeping of Active Trave funds to be "inadequate."
The reports highlighted missing documents for tenders and invoices and a lack of conflict-of-interest declarations from the Council.
Addressing the issue last week, Waterford Council Director of Services, Gabriel Hynes, said the issues raised in the audit were in relation to paperwork mismanagement.
“The issues that were raised were procedural in nature, no indication of any wrongdoing was identified, it’s very important to point that out. Proper procurement was conducted and there was no misappropriation of any funding" Mr. Hynes said.
“We have put procedures in place to ensure all the necessary governance and paperwork will be in place for the next audit" he added.
Meanwhile, local councillor Donal Barry expressed serious concern over the audit last week.
He said that councillors and the general public only learned about the issue through media reports.
“While I stress there is no allegation of any wrongdoing, nevertheless we cannot be learning of these administration errors in this way" he said.
“Councillors were not informed at the time, despite being routinely required to approve additional funding for other projects. That raises a fundamental question about consistency, and respect for the role of elected members.
To ensure public trust, councillor Barry requested that independent financial auditors forensically audit the accounts for 2023 and 2024.
“This is taxpayers’ money. Governance standards exist to ensure transparency and accountability, and in this instance those standards were not met” he said.
