From the Mayor: 13 September 2023
Published on 13 September 2023
Following on from my statement after the stalled Extraordinary Council Meeting on Tuesday, 12 September 2023, I would like to provide further information regarding the issues that have resulted in the qualified audit from the Office of the Auditor General and Forsyths, Council’s appointed independent auditor.
The attached FAQs(PDF, 132KB) will provide further detail in terms of the work that we need to do to correct this audit situation.
The main message at this point is that we know what the problems are. They are fixable, there is no “lost money” or impropriety (that was clearly stated by the auditor) and our present management team are fully capable of working with the Auditor General’s Office to tidy these things up.
There have been some elected members and people within our community that wish to cast blame or find scapegoats for what has been an administrative error. This has primarily occurred during the period of 2019 to 2021.
We must put these matters in to context. Record keeping may not have been as stringent as it could have been: there are no excuses, however, we must also acknowledge that during this period we experienced a number of challenges including the Covid-19 pandemic, multiple flood events, a lack of resources and since that time, a significant loss of corporate knowledge – that may have been able to fill our knowledge gaps, if they had still been with us.
Regardless, this situation “is what it is” as the saying goes. We cannot look at the past for blame, we must focus on repairing our knowledge gaps, fixing the issues described in the FAQs and move this organisation forward.
I am proud of our team and this Council for facing this challenge head on, just as we have done through all our recent trials, be they droughts, floods, or audits.
I remain optimistic that we will sign off our Annual Financial Statements for 2021/2022 at the reconvened Extraordinary Council Meeting at 12.00pm on Tuesday, 26 September 2023.
- Ron Campbell, Mayor