An attempt to uncover why the Araparera Forestry Joint Venture failed to deliver a better commercial result has been thwarted by the Rodney Local Board.
At its final meeting of the current local government term, Board member Greg Sayers asked his colleagues to support a Notice of Motion calling on Auckland Council’s Finance and Performance Committee, chaired by Rodney Councillor Penny Webster, to conduct a full audit of the joint venture.
However, only Rodney’s northern board members – James Colville, Beth Houlbrooke, Steven Garner and Greg Sayers supported the motion. All five board members from the south opposed it – Warren Flaunty, Thomas Grace, John McLean, Phelan Pirrie and Brenda Steele.
Mr Sayers’ motion called for a full audit of the accumulated financial accounts, including all income and expenditure, and a comment on any overpayment of invoices. He recommended that the cost of the audit be deducted from the Araparera joint venture funds, with a cap of $50,000.
“The audit is not to justify the figures,” he said. “There isn’t any more money to find. We want a proper audit to bring closure. This has gone on and on, and the Board needs to step-up and ask Council for some proper financial accountability.”
Mr Pirrie was concerned that if the cost of the audit was more than $50,000, it would be an expense that would have to be borne by general ratepayers not involved in the scheme. But his amendment calling for the full cost of the audit to be paid from Araparera funds was lost, with Mr Garner calling the amendment “unduly petty”.
“The sum of $50,000 is a relatively small amount to get someone to categorically say, ‘this is what it was and this is what it should have been’,” he said.
Mr Flaunty, who spoke strongly against the motion, said that the joint venture returns had always been estimated to be around $3.5 million.
“The history of this project over the past six years has been transparent,” he said. “We don’t need a witch hunt.” Mr McLean said he didn’t need an audit to know that “the money is not there”. Mr Grace said the audit would be a waste of time and would achieve nothing.
Mrs Steele, who is also the Board chair, opposed the audit because she believed there was no evidence of widespread community support for it.
“Besides, there is no new information that Council will be able to produce for a new audit. If it was there, we would have seen it by now.”
After the meeting, Mr Sayers said he was very disappointed that the “right thing” was not done on behalf of the 7000-plus ratepayers who paid the targeted rate for such a long period of time.
“A straw poll was taken at an earlier Board workshop which indicated that the motion would be supported, but obviously some members changed their minds and I don’t know why. I don’t intend to give up trying to get some transparency on this issue. If given the chance, I will raise it again with the new Local Board elected after the October 8 election.”
The joint venture, between Rodney County Council and Maori Trustees, was set-up in 1984. A total of $1.5 million was collected in a targeted rate across the old Northern Riding up until 2013.
Panuku Development managed the harvest on behalf of Council, which returned ratepayers 69 per cent or $2.4 million of the proceeds. The balance – 31 per cent or $1.1 million – went to the Maori Trustees.
