Saturday, October 17, 2009
Irony failure
There was a fascinating letter in yesterday's Western Mail from a Robert Haines of Pontypool attacking Kirsty Williams for wanting to bring value for money to our efforts to attract jobs to Wales. He wrote:
I have nothing but contempt for our so-called MPs who on the one hand praise individuals who bring investment into Wales, then criticise them for their expenses (Welsh civil servants paid for football kit and children’s textbooks on expenses, October 14). How do they expect our men and women who move to foreign countries to live?
It costs more to live abroad and the expenses highlighted in your front page article are most certainly not excessive compared with Westminster.
I call this nit-picking and it’s about time the likes of Kirsty Williams moved into the 21st century and realised we have to speculate to accumulate investment in Wales.
She ought to start caring for the people who work for Wales not ridicule them.
Well, yes! Nobody is complaining about legitimate expenses but there comes a point where we have to question whether some of the expenditure recorded should really be borne by the public purse. More importantly is the second report into International Business Wales that Mr. Haines does not appear to be aware of.
That is the one that says that the civil servants Mr. Haines is supporting are failing to do their job in making an impact in key overseas markets such as the USA, hence failing to bring the investment to Wales that we all want. Perhaps that should be the key indicator in evaluating whether these expense claims can be justified or not.
I have nothing but contempt for our so-called MPs who on the one hand praise individuals who bring investment into Wales, then criticise them for their expenses (Welsh civil servants paid for football kit and children’s textbooks on expenses, October 14). How do they expect our men and women who move to foreign countries to live?
It costs more to live abroad and the expenses highlighted in your front page article are most certainly not excessive compared with Westminster.
I call this nit-picking and it’s about time the likes of Kirsty Williams moved into the 21st century and realised we have to speculate to accumulate investment in Wales.
She ought to start caring for the people who work for Wales not ridicule them.
Well, yes! Nobody is complaining about legitimate expenses but there comes a point where we have to question whether some of the expenditure recorded should really be borne by the public purse. More importantly is the second report into International Business Wales that Mr. Haines does not appear to be aware of.
That is the one that says that the civil servants Mr. Haines is supporting are failing to do their job in making an impact in key overseas markets such as the USA, hence failing to bring the investment to Wales that we all want. Perhaps that should be the key indicator in evaluating whether these expense claims can be justified or not.
