From Ray McCredie.
JUST what does it take for a minister to be sacked in this Island – short of treason or murder, that is?
Regarding the incinerator payment, the failure to have the euro rate set could cost Jersey taxpayers the astounding sum of £9 million. The person in charge of the Treasury at the time of the massive blunder was Senator Terry Le Sueur. He should be sacked now.
Irrespective of what task was allocated to whichever underling in the Treasury Department, the Senator was ultimately responsible to ensure that these duties were fulfilled in their entirety. In short, when a team is playing badly, the manager is dismissed. This lot are not even shown a yellow card! The Treasury team played badly and the buck stops with Senator Le Sueur.
If a scapegoat or sacrificial lamb is found in the Treasury, rest assured that he or she will be well down the pecking order of seniority.
The sale of States of Jersey Housing stock cost the taxpayer over £1 million. The dumping of hundreds of tons of potatoes at Beauport was not only an environmental disaster, but the year-after-year clean-up must have cost millions. I am informed that this even took place on a Christmas Day!
There are many more instances of public money being wasted, but the point has been made.
There are never any consequences for the irresponsibility of those ministers. It appears that they are accountable to no one. Failure in Jersey is rewarded with protection.
Had any of these people been employed in the private sector, they would long ago have been given 30 minutes to clear their desk and leave the building. No ministers will ever be sacked in Jersey. It is not ‘the Jersey way’. The establishment live in each other’s pockets.
During this recessionary period, when the rest of us are told to pull our belts in another notch and feel the pain, it has been proposed that our politicians be awarded a £1,000 a year wage increase. It seems to me that they have a good deal as it is – forty-four grand a year and three months’ holiday.
The complete political set-up in Jersey is vomitworthy.
5 Tunnell Street,
St Helier.
