Lynne Featherstone

The news that a further £3 million is to be spent on Haringey Council’s notorious ‘Tech Refresh’ project has resulted in huge criticism of George Meehan’s Labour administration. Haringey’s Liberal Democrat opposition are furious that the council member in charge of the original project, Labour councillor Dhirendra Basu, has been reappointed by Labour to oversee the department responsible for the original scandal.

The project had an original budget of £9 million and went £10.6 million over budget by the end of the last financial year. Cllr Meehan announced last night that extra costs of £2.89 million would have to be spent on the project.

Commenting on the announcement, Councillor Neil Williams says: “This is yet another crushing blow to hard pressed Haringey tax payers, all due to Labour’s utterly incompetent handling of this entire project.

“On top of the £10 million already squandered, local voters are having to fork out a further £3 million to enable incompetent Labour councillors to walk away from a financial disaster that they themselves created.

“And on top of all of this, the councillor in charge of managing these costs, and complex new management systems for the Council’s IT services, has just been reinstated by Labour to the post from which he presided over this disaster in the first place.

“To say this does not inspire confidence would be a grotesque understatement. Labour’s sheer audacity in the face of this shambles is almost impossible to believe.”