Eddie Backs Down

If the Province wants a proper forensic audit done of the books and records of the Windsor Utilities Commission, there is only one guy in Canada to call. He is Al Rosen of Rosen & Associates in Toronto. He is the Accountants' Accountant who made a reputation of not being afraid to take on the major accounting firms in professional negligence cases.

The reason he would be perfect for this job is that the Province used him as Investigator in the Board of Education financial fiascos a number of years ago.

• "Rosen touched off a storm of anger in late August, calling Toronto trustees "dysfunctional" and slamming the board for spending millions of dollars on items not considered classroom expenditures under the province's school funding formula."

Our kind of guy eh!

The Star's Monica Wolfson and A-Channel News deserve our thanks for reporting on the story in the first place and keeping at it.

However, the congratulations go out to the lonely BLOGGERs in town for keeping this story going after the Mayor tried desperately to stop the hemorrhaging of credibility at last Monday's Council meeting. The "flushing" protest of The Mayor of Monmouth, the Windsor Municipal Shadow's "number-crunching," Chris Schnurr's "WUC Finance Director" bombshell and my moles' efforts all contributed to Eddie folding. His Eminence Greasie at least had the sense to tell Eddie to stop fighting and try and bury the story before more was disclosed!

Al Nelman's call for a 10,000 signature Petition and my draft of one which I posted here must have concerned our Mayor. If that many people signed up, and there are probably that many people on seniors income in town, Eddie's career and that of several Councillors would have been finished!

• "But Mayor Eddie Francis said Friday he didn't object to the call for a forensic audit...
  
  We would welcome another set of eyes. We invite anyone, the provincial auditor, if that is what it will take to give people confidence the WUC is operating effectively and efficiently. I will make the request."

Yup, some people on the WUC Commission are near-sighted I guess and cannot read what is set in front of them, say in a Financial Director's Report months ago.

I wonder if Eddie will give access to all relevant WUC documents to the media including BLOGGERs or will he require Municipal Freedom of Information applications as he has in the past to stall matters?

Eddie's big defence now is:

• "(WUC's) financials are audited and that information is public," Francis said.
  
  "It has an independent audit committee that overseas operations. It's because of those reviews that changes are being made."

WUC's spokeswoman Sylvia deVries said

• "a forensic audit wasn't necessary because KPMG audits the utility annually."

Well, Eddie and Sylvia....Enron had auditors too as did Hollinger as examples and audit committees too. So their comments give me no comfort. As Al Rosen has said

• "External corporate auditors don't look for fraud, don't check the internal control systems, and they have signed agreements that downloads responsibility for problems onto the company's management or directors, Rosen said."

Frankly, the role of the auditors is one of the issues to examine as well. The question is that since they knew how the levy was to be applied, why did they not know it was not being used for the watermains only, especially given the Finance Director's comments in the 2004 Annual Report?

I am not at all suggesting that we have an Enron-type scandal. But if the Finance Director's report in May, 2007 is correct, then the levy was NOT applied as the Commission had ordered ie for watermain infrastructure, since 2004. There was a diversion of funds for all of those years and no one caught it or understood the significance of what was being done. And it seems that Eddie and the three Councillor/WUC Commissioners did not understand that as late as the last Council meeting!

Councillor "I had the chance to do something at Council but backed off" Halberstadt has now jumped on the bandwagon demanding an audit. But at least he is a Councillor saying something positive and will now actually have to act.

Eddie's new line will become:

• "I am sorry but I cannot discuss this matter since it is under investigation."

However, the game is not over yet. You know that Eddie will try to set up Terms of Reference that will not allow the investigator to investigate anything controversial that could hurt him or Councillors Marra, Lewenza and Jones....so that is the next fight! In fact, none of them should be involved in anything further to do with the investigation given their obvious conflict of interest! Will Councillor Halberstadt have the guts to keep them out?

I wonder what new issues Windsor Bloggers will bring up over the next few weeks! Stay tuned because I bet there is more to come!