Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Why the government cannot be trusted with our money

No, not about expenses, but accountability, the way that many so called high level administrators and executives in public services funded by the government either at local or national level are getting way more than it would appear the job requires. Currently more than 800 Whitehall mandarins and associated Quango bosses are on over £100,000 a year, some up to £300,000, all coming from the public purse.
However that pales into insignificance when it comes to the boss of Motability a not for profit organisation funded by the taxpayer.
Mail.
The chief executive of a taxpayer-funded scheme that leases cars and scooters to the disabled earned about £850,000 in pay and perks last year.
Mike Betts, 51, received the money as boss of Motability Operations, a not-for-profit company funded by the state.
Four other senior directors at the firm also earned large sums, taking home more than £2million in total in 2012.
Motability Operations, which received £18.3million in government grants last year to cover its running costs, leases various types of vehicle to around 600,000 disabled people.
It receives their mobility allowances direct from the Department for Work and Pensions.
Yet strangely enough the people who gave taxpayers cash to Motability when the guy was appointed in 2003 are often far more critical of bankers bonuses over the years, despite most banks being private institutions and the bonuses they pay being no business of the government or anyone else but their shareholders for that matter. Now Motability is owned and ran by a private consortium of banks and as such is not publicly owned. However as its only source of income is from the taxpayer I'd say that we had the right to ask just what the hell justifies anyone with a salary in the region of £850,000 including bonuses and perks? Particularly as we're the daft sods paying for these leeches. Same with any public servant or executive whose pay depends on the taxpayer.
Personally I'm of the opinion that no organisation in receipt of public funds should be allowed to have anyone on the payroll on who earns more than the Prime Minister. After all, he runs the country (in theory, though not in practice) and therefore his pay ought to set the level of any senior position funded by the taxpayer.
No, what happened was that the political classes saw that they could help themselves to the public purse to boost their incomes to disgusting levels and were aided and abetted by politicians, civil servants and the unions. We're seeing the direct result of that avarice and it's still ongoing. The next politician to go on about corporate greed needs to be reminded of the robbing of the public purse by those supposed to be servants and representatives of the people.
This is why you should never vote for the big three, they are complicit in the system to rob us blind and give our cash to the totally undeserving.
One day, I truly believe we'll hang them all, problem is that the money they've taken will never be recouped...

2 annotations:

Mr. Morden said...

They are, as Dave said, "all in it together."

After all, its not there money, so who cares.

dave/r said...

hang the lot of them i have had enough of their greed