YOUR report (SA, Feb 7) on the problems of Digital City, the wi-fi provider, raises serious concerns.
Councillor Perkins is reported as saying: “I’ve never been involved with the day-to-day running of the company.” Yet, as I understand it, he was made a director of Digital City ‘to protect the council’s interests’. Thus, as a director, he should have been aware of the company’s poor performance of sales (and failure to meet its targets) and its financial position in terms of ‘income and expenditure’.
Certainly, he should have been expressing the council’s concerns to the board of Digital City; and he should have been warning the council of the situation.
The report also states that the council has actually parted with £400,000 (out of a possible £450,000 loan), yet the total assets of Digital City are only £250,000. This does not sound like a sensible business basis for the loan; it would appear that the council has been behaving like a merchant bank - and gambling (or speculating) with taxpayers’ money.
Clearly Coun Perkins is not solely responsible for this fiasco. One must wonder what sort of advice the council’s officers were giving councillors - particularly the Director of Finance. Also other councillors on the Scrutiny Committee, in the Cabinet and on the full council must bear some responsibility for allowing the present state of affairs to develop.
It should not need individual residents to ask the ‘awkward’ questions. We elect our councillors to protect our interests - and to spend our money wisely.
MALCOLM MORRISON
Prospect Hill
Swindon
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