Friday 17 July 2009

Free Range For Corrupt Council Official

More strange goings on in Argyll and Bute.

One Councillor has a nice wee sideline in providing 'free range eggs' supposedly from Stronchuillan Farm (but which seem to be bought in bulk elsewhere and then re-packaged)

Eggs from this farm in which he seems to have an interest are then delivered to, amongst other places, the Isle of Bute where the Depute leader of the Council also, allegedly, has a farm.

This week a council employee was ordered to use a council vehicle to deliver these eggs to an unnamed premises for re-sale.

Now, we are not interested in the fact that these eggs may be fraudulently misrepresented as being 'free range' to the long suffering people of Argyll and Bute.
We are not even interested in the insurance aspect of a council vehicle being misused for the carriage of fresh produce.

Rather, we are interested in this Councillor rejecting an appeal by a local worker who was fired - after 32 years service - on trumped up charges after refusing to do work 'off the books' for a friend of the same Councillor.

The charges were 'refusing to obey a reasonable order' and 'misuse of council property' and the story even made its way into The Sun.

Corruption is not limited to the strange goings on in Parliament it seems.

Or, maybe I am just wrong in my belief that councillors are elected to represent their constituents rather than feather their own nests at our expense.

4 comments:

Jose said...

I'm afraid, Merkin, this is also happening in other countries going through the present crisis. Employers - not necessarily Council members - are taking their employees to extremes that were last seen before the right to strike was instituted. The fear to lose their jobs is doing wonders for the sake of those bosses who believe they have replaced their ancient predecessors of the nineteenth century.

zola a social thing said...

Me free range eggs are available at very reasonable prices for naughty weekend party-goers.

Only the upper-middle-class should reply.

anticant said...

What naughty things do weekend party-goers do with free range eggs?

Do tell.

Merkin said...

This has been happening here since well before the current crisis, jose, but I take your point.

Recently, I heard of one temporary worker who is employed as a toilet cleaner.
He travels by bike some 250 miles per week between the various sites he cleans.
However, he is not paid for the time to travel between sites - in any other job he would be able to claim hours worked from his first appointment.
Not here.
He goes to a site, cleans it, then clocks off before travelling to the next site and clocking on again etc etc etc.

Zola and Anti - I could think of a good use for some of these eggs however the councillors would probably complain to the police.