Next chapter in cash for concerts saga set to unfold
Posted Jul 18, 2012 06:18:25 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
HRM’s auditor general is poised to unravel another tangle in the cash for concerts scandal that may help explain how the municipality wound up with a $360,000 bill after unauthorized loans were made to a concert promoter.
Larry Munroe will present another report to the audit and finance committee today that’s expected to delve into the transfer of box office operations from the Halifax Metro Centre to Trade Centre Ltd.
Some questionable shuffling of funds between the two entities allowed advances to be made to a concert promoter in 2009 without alerting HRM officials.
Coast reporter Tim Bousquet, who has covered the scandal in depth, says he expects the report to be explosive.
“I think (Munroe) is going to put a dollar figure on what he thinks the city’s loss has been,” Bousquet told the Rick Howe Show Tuesday.
He said one of the big problems was that the cheques given to concert promoter Harold MacKay had Metro Centre logos, which Trade Centre Ltd. were claiming as their own.
“That’s how the concert scandal, some $5.4 million in loans, was funneled through this bank account, that no one at city hall knew existed,” said Bousquet.
The report will be the first since Munroe’s initial review of the scandal, delivered to council in June 2011.
Councillors Gloria McCluskey (Dartmouth Centre) and Russell Walker (Fairview – Clayton Park) are members of the audit and finance committee, where Munroe will deliver his report.
“I’m interested in hearing what it has to say. The auditor general has been at this for some time now. I expect he’s taken everything into consideration,” said McCluskey. “I don’t think anything will be a surprise. We’ve talked about this so much, I don’t think anything will be a surprise.”
“I guess what’s in the report is how the transaction happened, and who knew what when,” said Walker.
Harold MacKay received $400,000 for the Black Eyed Peas and Alan Jackson concerts on the Halifax Common in 2010.
HRM received $38,000 from promoter MacKay in August 2011, after threatening to withdraw all services for a Metallica concert organized by MacKay’s wife.
