Bad management by SaskWater of its investment in the potato growing industry has cost taxpayers millions according to a Provincial Auditor's Report released last week.

Back in 1996 SaskWater, and its cutely-named subsidiary Spudco, started building massive concrete potato storage facilities near Outlook and entered into sharecropping agreements to attract farmers into the potato growing business. But SaskWater's potato plans got mashed when prices plunged and farmers couldn't afford the enormous rents on the luxurious potato fortresses. The structures are like cold war airplane hangars, built to withstand an atomic blast, but vulnerable to basic market economics.

Things hit bottom in early 1999 with the bankruptcy of one of the industry's main players, the Lake Diefenbaker Potato Corporation (LDPC). The spectacular collapse of LDPC left investors, farmers, and taxpayers fuming, prompting the Provincial Auditor to conduct a review of SaskWater's affairs.

The Auditor's report states that from 1996 until late 1998 "SaskWater's rules and procedures for managing its investment in the potato industry were not adequate" and "objectives for the investment in the potato industry were not clear or measurable." Even more appalling, the Auditor points our that major decisions were made without a comprehensive assessment of the risks of investing in the potato industry or a proper cost-benefit analysis being done. In other words, the whole plan was a few fries short of a full order.

Thanks to the Provincial Auditor, taxpayers now know more about why this project fell flatter than a potato pancake on Shrove Tuesday. But we still don't have a measure of the full costs, who is to blame for the fiasco, or how to prevent it from happening again.

Taxpayers are on the hook for at least $10 million, but that bill could triple. The bankruptcy of LDPC in 1999 cost SaskWater $5.2 million, the and there was another $5 million in operating losses from 1997 to 1999. SaskWater also spent $21.7 million to construct the seven concrete potato storage facilities that, according to the experts, are probably at best only worth one-quarter of that amount, for a loss of about $16 million. Add to that the Farm Credit Corporation's $5.3 million loss due to LDPC bankruptcy and the total is up over $30 million. This still does not include the costs of at least two pending lawsuits over who is responsible for this mess.

As for responsibility, a formal public inquiry may be the only way to find out who is to blame. But the ultimate responsibility is no mystery. It lies with a government that insists on using public money to interfere in the economy. When will our governments learn that they have no business being in business Maybe its time to nip these misadventures in the bud with a law that would prohibit our government from playing "venture capitalist" with our tax money.

Cutting taxes in this province would be a lot easier if our government would quit wasting tax dollars on half-baked economic development schemes. And economic development would happen faster and with better results if it was left up to private enterprise.