Cllr Stoddart: Still hasn’t received an answer

PEMBROKESHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL has only recovered £25,000 of the £189,224.26 which was paid to Mr Cathal McCosker in relation to the Pembroke and Pembroke Dock Commercial Property Grant Sche me.

That was the revelation at Thursday’s (Oct 20) Full Council meeting, where it was also revealed that, in a letter sent in April 2014, Mr McCosker had offered to pay back the full amount.

Mr McCosker stated in his letter that he was prepared to pay off one of the projects before paying the rest back within 12 months.

The police were also handed a series of documents in 2014 but nothing has happened and Cllr Mike Stoddart suspects that another cover-up is going on.

WEFO has also removed £309, 603.73 of funding, but that came out of the council’s resources and was unbudgeted.

When asked why only £25,000 had been recovered, Council Leader Jamie Adams said he did not know and said he would write to Cllr Mike Stoddart with the answer. At the time of going to press, Cllr Stoddart had still not received an answer.

At Thursday’s council meeting, Cllr Stoddart asked: “How much of the £189,224.26 that the council is seeking to recover from Mr Cathal McCosker and companies under his control in respect of irregular payments under the Pembroke and Pembroke Dock Commercial Property Grant Scheme (CPGS) has the council received to date?

“What was the total amount removed by WEFO from the Authority’s CPGS allocation as a result of irregular payments to Mr McCosker and companies under his control?”

Council Leader Jamie Adams answered: “£25,000 of the £189.224.26 has been repaid to date. It should be noted that as charges were based on all properties, the council will not be financially disadvantaged.”

Cllr Stoddart responded: “I’m aware that Mr McCosker wrote this council a letter in April 2014, in which he offered to pay back £180,000 that he had in grants and he offered to pay one project back immediately – that was 10 Meyrick Street, Pembroke Dock – and the rest within 12 months.

“Now we’re two-and-a-half years down the road and he’s paid back £25,000. Why wasn’t that offer taken up when he made it?”

Cllr Adams said he did not know the reason why the offer was not taken up.

In response to Cllr Stoddart’s second question, Cllr Adams answered: “The WEFO approval for the Pembroke and Pembroke Dock regeneration scheme included an amount of expenditure for a commercial property grant scheme. Under EU funding rules, expenditure claimed against that approval but later found by WEFO to be ineligible is excluded from the claim but also acts to reduce the approved amount of eligible expenditure during the operation as a whole.

“The whole of the expenditure declared in relation to the properties owned by Mr McCosker or properties under his control was £309,603.73; therefore, the reduction in the approved expenditure was the same amount. This equates to a reduction in the ERDF grant approval of £220,262.29.”

Cllr Stoddart responded: “As this money was taken out of the council’s allocation and has never been claimed back from Mr McCosker, save £25,000, I think it follows that this money has come out of this council’s own resources. The money that’s been paid out on these projects in Pembroke Dock – it should have come out of WEFO’s resources and it’s come out of this council’s resources, so how was that budgeted for?”

Chief Finance Officer John Haswell said: “It wasn’t budgeted for but when the money was reclaimed, we had no choice but to pay it back.”

Cllr Stoddart replied: “As we’d already paid it out to Mr McCosker, it came out of this council’s resources.”