28 May (Part 2) - Credit card purchases
This morning’s Daily Telegraph has
a front page feature on the use of council credit cards. No council has such
an unsavoury history as Bexley when it comes to abuse of credit cards. No
other has had a leader who finished up with a suspended prison sentence for
abuse of his card and unless something has changed in the last couple of weeks
we taxpayers are still around £2,000 out of pocket.
The beauty of paying by credit card is presumably that a payment to, for example,
one of the lap-dancing clubs
that councillors appear to look on kindly, won’t show in the ‘expenditure over
£500 list’ as such, it will show only as a payment to Visa. Clever that.
The Telegraph is not suggesting current expenditure is fraudulent, just
that a lot is going on credit card bills and some is unchecked. The newspaper includes
a detailed report on Bexley council. How would you like to see £218,670 on
your Visa statement? You are going to have to help pay this one.