Chief, council not allowed to participate in budget process: Roseau chief

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This article was published 03/09/2015 (3156 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

One of the Manitoba First Nations that Ottawa filed legal action against says it will comply, but a stalemate with its financial managers isn’t helping matters.

Like many First Nations, Roseau objects to federal funding laws that require disclosure of salaries and expenses paid to chief and council and the release of consolidated revenues.

Chief Alfred Hayden held a press conference to draw attention to internal management conflicts with the band’s third-party managers that now also extend to cuts in welfare payments to band members and problems with school funding, programs that are funded federally.

“Chief and council was not permitted to participate in the budgeting process and has no access to the budget currently,” reporters were told Friday outside the regional headquarters for the federal Aboriginal Affairs in Winnipeg.

Roseau operates businesses that receive no federal funding; chief and council salaries are entirely funded by the band’s private ventures. “No federal funding goes to their remuneration,” the band’s lawyer said.

Last month,Ottawa filed an application in federal court to compel the First Nation to disclose its finances, the band’s lawyer told reporters at the press conference.