There’s money missing at City Hall again – except this time it’s not under-depositing – it’s pilfering of revenue collections – and the ones being blamed are clerks and cashiers – not any elected council official. The figures cited go as high as sixty thousand dollars and tonight three City Council employees are detained at the Police Department. They have been in custody since last night after what we are told was a revealing meeting in the Mayor’s office yesterday evening.
The three employees were confronted with evidence which showed them going into the data management system and adjusting entries. Our sources tell us that the data log shows that they changed dates and figures to make it seem that certain payments had not been made at all, or that they had been made for less than the actual figure. At that meeting, when confronted with the evidence, two of the employees – we are told – confessed to being in the scam and under pressure from the Mayor returned cash then and there. That’s when the police were called in and they were detained – which is where they remain this evening
It is another money mismanagement scandal at a council that has already earned a public reputation for fiscal irresponsibility. But this time, there are no political reputations on the line – so it’s being dealt with in a straightforward manner and the council is cooperating fully with police. This afternoon, investigators from the Crimes Investigation Branch were seen going into the council to have a meeting with City Administrator Kiran Vanjani who – we are told – has compiled the evidence thus far.
Councillor Phillip Willoughby was assigned to address the media today. He spoke first about how the fraud was perpetrated.
Phillip Willoughby, City Councillor
“What was done, one individual would backdate, back post, or maybe even remove receipts or invoices from within the system. So at the end of the day when you would print your balance, you would balance because the amount of monies that was removed or withdrawn from the register would not have showed up at the end of the day when it came to the balancing of the council’s funds.”
