A BACKBENCH MHK says he’s opposed to the Sefton bailout deal.
Alfred Cannan MHK (Michael) says the decision to use public funds to help ‘bail out’ the Sefton Group ‘is both ill-judged and fundamentally unfair to those many companies and businesses who are also struggling in a difficult economic climate’.
He said: ‘The correct course of action would have been to appoint an administrator who would have sought to run the group as a going concern until such time as a buyer or buyers were found.
‘As a result, it is highly conceivable that the hotels would have kept running through TT week and into the summer season. It was unlikely to have sent the economy into a “tailspin” as the Chief Minister claims.
‘It is fair to say that it was the management and the Directors of the Sefton Group, some of whom are still in post, who created these problems and who are responsible for sorting this out, not the public purse.’
{http://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/isle-of-man-news/govt-bail-out-struggling-sefton-group-1-5597293|Click here to read last week’s story about the Sefton deal}
{http://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/isle-of-man-news/former-lieutenant-governor-in-row-with-the-bishop-1-5603489|Click here to see the front page of today’s Isle of Man Examiner}
He added that the chief minister, Allan Bell MHK, had said he was ‘providing a statement of support to the wider economy’.
Mr Cannan said: ‘I am sure that there are many people out in the community who will feel aggrieved that the government was not there to provide direct financial support to their businesses or jobs in their hour of need.
‘Furthermore, as the government continues to cut services and increase charges and fees in a number of areas, it is hard to see how a bailout of a publicly-listed company, chaired by a former chief minister [Sir Miles Walker] and with multiple connections to government, will be seen as anything else but “cronyism” at its very worst.’
{http://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/isle-of-man-news/liberal-vannin-disgusted-by-sefton-deal-1-5603624|Click here to read the Liberal Vannin Party’s reaction to the deal}