LOOPHOLES that allowed former Riverina Water County Council (RWCC) general manager Gerald Pieper to steal more than $350,000 from his employer have been firmly plugged, the organisation's current boss says.
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The Daily Advertiser can reveal a corruption complaint from a staff member - lodged to Pieper's replacement Graeme Haley and the then chairman Rod Kendall in January, 2011 - triggered a series of investigations into the thefts that spanned a decade.
Pieper, 56, was jailed in Wagga District Court on September 9 after previously pleading guilty to six counts of misconduct in public office.
Pieper started stealing from the RWCC about four years into the top job and, over the next 10 years, defrauded the organisation of $351,959.42.
Speaking in response to questions raised in an opinion piece in Wednesday's Advertiser, Mr Haley described the staff's shock at the allegations and how senior management came to know about the behaviour.
Mr Haley replaced Pieper on January 17, 2011, and said the following week he was asked by a staff member how a complaint about the former general manager could be lodged.
A letter to Councillor Kendall arrived on Mr Haley's desk the next day.
Once the allegations in the document were known, the matter was reported to the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) and the Department of Local Government.
"There was a complaint lodged by a staff member (and) the appropriate action was taken," Mr Haley said.
"There has been a full review of procedures (since)."
Cr Kendall told the Advertiser on Wednesday the accusation meant he had no choice other than to take immediate action.
"I opened the letter in Graeme's presence ... by close of business that day it had to go to ICAC," Cr Kendall said.
ICAC said an internal investigation should be carried out and, following a review, the matter was handed to police in the first week of March, 2011.
“It was also recommended that we engage an independent forensic auditor, just to see where the weaknesses were," Mr Haley said.
Mr Haley said Pieper's involvement in the purchase of plant equipment and vehicles "left it open for problems".
During his time at the helm, Mr Haley said he has taken "no part" in buying those items - except to give final approval - and all his credit card transactions have to be authorised by current chairman, Councillor Garry Hiscock.
"Those sorts of loopholes have been closed ... that is the general manager's role to make sure those loopholes aren't there," he said.
“There were internal controls for everyone else, but not the general manager.”
When asked about Pieper's actions, Cr Kendall said "if the policies were in place, they weren't necessarily followed in a way other staff would".
"There's been a very significant upgrade and improvement to those processes and protocols ... so nobody has an excuse not to know," he said.
Cr Kendall said he had "no indication whatsoever" anything was untoward and was dumbfounded how Pieper managed to disguise his actions.
"Council did have an external auditor, I don't know how it escaped the external auditor," he said.
"At the end of the day, the further up that chain of command, the less opportunities there are for checks by those further up the ladder.
"The case highlighted the need for a review of procedures ... to make sure an occurrence such as this couldn't occur in future without being detected and of that I'm confident."
"THE staff here found it exceedingly difficult, because Gerald was very, very popular".
Despite the shock of hundreds of thousands of dollars being taken from Riverina Water County Council, general manager Graeme Haley said staff and councillors couldn't comment until now because the matter was under police investigation.
"We're all public officers and we've got to respect the law," Mr Haley said.
"We had to respect due process."
Mr Haley refuted any suggestion customers have been caught up in the investigation by water bills described by some as "verging on ridiculously high" and said the biggest cost not covered by insurance would have been the time for council staff.
"Most (of the staff time) was spent developing procedures, which should have been in place anyway," he said.
"We haven't increased our water charges to cover it, we knew we'd get the money back either by way of restitution or insurance."
Pieper was ordered by the court to compensate the sum stolen
The new policies - which were implemented during October, 2012 - are due to be reviewed again at the next RWCC meeting.