APPENDIX 27
Memorandum submitted by Mr Gordon Winbourne
DOME: MILLENNIUM COMMISSION/NMEC CONTROVERSIAL
FUNDING OVER AND ABOVE THE AUTHORISED £758 MILLION
I enclose correspondence[6]
and supporting documentation submitted to the Millennium Commission
challenging the further funds supplied since the Dome opened for
business on New Year's Eve and which automatically deprives other
good causes projects denied funds on the grounds that they could
not be funded due to scarcity of good causes funding allegedly
not available to the Millennium Commission.
According to the latest figures as published
in yesterday's Times newspaper and quoted in the enclosed
letter addressed to Mr M O'Connor, the Commission's Director of
Policy and Corporate Affairs; the additional funds paid to NMEC
including the £29 million just handed over now amount in
all to £140 million.
That amount of money is seen as being denied
or having been denied by the Commission, to other projects otherwise
eligible but denied allegedly due to the Commission's inability
to provide funds.
Accordingly whatever the situation may have
been at the material time (and which will require verification)
the Commission has clearly had funds available since, and which
are seen as subject to a first charge by projects denied funds
now handed over to the NMEC.
The Dome was and is a Government promoted project,
it is therefore up to Ministers to make good any indebtedness.
If Ministers do not wish to do so then the Dome must close.
The Millennium Commission is not primarily responsible
for the Dome. The acute conflict of interest now so painfully
obvious whereby Ministers on the Commission and running NMEC by
virtue of the so-called Golden Share, gives rise to the questioning
of the impartiality of the Commission in continuing to sanction
these huge sums of good causes Lottery allocations which were
never intended to "bail out" an otherwise bankrupt enterprise.
The fact that the Government creams off 13 per
cent of all Lottery receipts at source cannot have escaped your
Committee's notice and neither for that matter the fact that the
Government is due to sell off the Dome in due course. It stands
to reason that unless the proceeds of sale are above the additional
£140 million a lien on the proceeds of sale is now essential,
and at the very least all monies realised should be returned to
be re-allocated to projects which were denied funds allegedly
due to scarcity of funds at the material time.
I have set out in some detail the case history
of UPR/MC/E/1576. I feel sure that there are many other well documented
cases on the Commission's files which can equally lay claim to
reconsideration and recompense.
The enclosed folder is therefore submitted for
scrutiny and consideration by your Committee.[7]
A caretaker body to deal with these residual
issues would now appear long overdue given the profligate behaviour
of the Commission.
May 2000
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