Walyalup project costs, debts referred to full council

WALYALUP Civic Centre’s multi-million-dollar overruns, high risk staff access to supplier accounts and overdue debts, some five years old, worth $778,540.
The City audit & risk committee members had a lot on its plate last night, none of which is streamed live though members are able to vote on items including a controversial financial report detailing the cost of Walyalup Civic Centre.
Officers presented members with the same financial tables Fremantle CEO Glen Dougall promised at the previous ordinary council meeting to correct before the full council next week.
Mr Dougall said on May 25: “I agree we should probably amend those monthly financial statements, absolutely. We have been busy preparing budgets and financial audits and dealing with COVID and all those sorts of things, sometimes we have to prioritise how we respond to things. We were able to get some of that detail to Cr Vujcic and the rest of council early this afternoon.”
The members last night accepted the uncorrected report which states the original project cost for the Kings Square Business Plan adopted in February 2012 was $44.75m, its implementation funded by the sale of properties ($29.55m) and funds loaned from the State Government ($15m).
Draft financial statements presented to council in March this year included work in progress amounts for the period ended June 30, 2021: “This figure represents $52.15m as at 30 June, 2021. There were additional costs associated with completing the project as a result of Pindan going into administration. These additional costs will form part of the total contract costs. This would see the estimated figure for total project costs at $57.21m.”
StreetWise understands the government loan was $20m not $15m, bringing the cost of Fremantle’s new civic centre to more than $62m – a cost blowout of nearly $20m.
Mr Dougall refuses to shed light on the $5m discrepancy.

Audit warnings

Under ‘Interim Audit – Finance (Year ending 30 June 2020)’, the risk rating for the City’s supplier ‘Masterfile’ is significant. Auditors recommended the vendor masterfile be, “appropriately reviewed and approved by an independent officer, including retaining evidence of this process”.
They add: “System access privileges to the master file should be reviewed to ensure that only appropriate, approved staff have access.”
StreetWise understands about 30 staff have access to this masterfile which includes supplier bank account details. In 2019, a review of duplicate supplier records found some suppliers, “have more than one record due to different address or payment methods”.
The City promised to review the process and those officers with access to change the supplier master files details and, “update security settings as required”.
Progress? According to documents present to the committee last night, no further update at 30 March 2021, no further update at 31 July 2021, no further update at 21 September 2021.
The ‘Amended Estimated Completion Date’ is now 30 June 2022. ‘Original Estimated Completion Date’ 31 March 2021.
Committee members also considered a confidential ‘Overdue Debtors Report as at 30 April 2022’ that lists $778,540 in outstanding debt, “of which $436,753 (60%) relates to debts owed by seven debtors”. Debtors include those with outstanding debts exceeding 90 days with a combined value of debt over $10,000.
“Active debt collection activities are ongoing for all debtors,” the report states.