A ROW has broken and a Valleys councillor warned he faces being reported to the Ombudsman for a letter printed in the Argus.

Blackwood councillor Nigel Dix was written to by Caerphilly council asking him for a public retraction after a fellow councillor took issue with the wording of a highly-critical letter about the authority's investment in Icelandic banks.

Cllr Dix said the Plaid Cymru administration "ignored concerns expressed by their own financial advisors" and proceeded to invest £15 million.

But St Martins councillor and Mayor of Caerphilly, James Fussell, said this is not true and they were never advised not to invest the money.

Following the publication of the letter, Cllr Fussell contacted the council's legal team to seek a public retraction, who wrote to Cllr Dix outlining the situation.

Any reports to the Ombudsman must be done by an individual and cannot be done by the council's legal team.

Cllr Fussell said: "They weren't ignoring the advice from financial advisors, it's not the case."

The authority invested £5 million in Icelandic Landsbanki and £10 million in its UK subsidiary Heritable before they imploded in October 2008, investing money until  September 15.

The council will recover £12,282,460 in payments until July 2013, by which time Heritable Bank will have returned 80 per cent of deposits and Landsbanki 83 per cent.

   Around £4 million was set aside in the 2008/09 financial accounts to cover the losses.

Cllr Dix said: "They may not like it, but tough, I have the evidence saying the investment was risky - if they want to take me to the Ombudsman they can.

"It's clearly embarrassing for Plaid but if democracy means anything, people have to scrutinise people to be accountable for their actions so I am not apologising."

Cllr Fussell said he is giving Cllr Dix the opportunity to re-think his actions before taking the next step and admits reporting him to the Ombudsman would be a last resort depending "how close to the wind he sails."

He added: "We can be hoisted by our own petard."

 

                     

Cllr Dix's letter

      

It appears that Cllr Whittle and his Nationalist colleagues are living up to their nickname, 'Daffodil Tories'.

They, like the Tories argue that Labour is to blame for the global financial meltdown, they argue, as do the Tories that RBS, Northern Rock and Lloyds, TSB should have been left to go under, resulting in untold misery for many.

The people of Caerphilly have not forgotten Cllr Whittle’s now infamous words.

‘Everyone's blaming me, I did not even know that we had £15 million invested in Icelandic banks.’ Plaid invested this money months after the credit crunch had hit and ignored concerns expressed by their own financial advisors. Despite all the warning signs and only three weeks before the Icelandic banks collapsed Plaid went ahead and invested £15 million.

Little wonder Mr Whittle came a poor fourth in the general election.