Victoria’s corruption watchdog has slammed City of Ballarat, stating its failure to properly investigate and prevent serious corruption meant bad behaviour had gone undetected.
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The Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (IBAC) investigation into serious corrupt conduct of a former City of Ballarat manager, called Operation Royston, was detailed in the agency’s 2017-2018 Annual Report.
The document states that despite City of Ballarat having policies and procedures in place to prevent corruption, IBAC identified “deficiencies” in the municipality’s actual use of these internal controls.
"This enabled the then manager’s conduct to go undetected for a significant period,” IBAC stated.
The watchdog said the internal investigation into the corruption was undertaken by senior council managers, who “lacked the expertise” to conduct such investigations and did not remove themselves from the process, resulting in a perceived conflict of interest.
City of Ballarat’s former sports and recreation manager Lukas Carey received a three year jail term in February this year for defrauding the council of $184,123 between 2013 and 2015.
IBAC stated in the process of authorising unlawful payments to his wife Jasmine Finnigan, and other associates, he solicited secret commissions totalling $47,745.
The Courier posed questions to City of Ballarat about how they had improved their internal processes to ensure the potential for corruption is reduced, and whether senior managers had been given more training to investigate corruption.
City of Ballarat declined to comment on the matter.
IBAC is Victoria’s anti-corruption agency, with jurisdiction over the public sector, including local government, members of Parliament and Victoria Police.
An IBAC spokeswoman told The Courier they had nothing further to add on Operation Royston.
Of the total cost to council, Mr Carey had a pecuniary interest in $55,885 paid to his wife.
In February 2018, the former manager was sentenced and also ordered to repay $31,200.
Ms Finnigan was convicted, fined $3000 and ordered to pay $20,500 in compensation costs.
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