Following on from the $1.9 billion supposedly spent on Mental Health comes this…
from the NZ Herald
The paper trail tracking the Government’s handling of $640 million in the Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) was so poor that auditors had to ask officials to recall what happened in their meetings, Parliament has been told.
“We have no position on whether the PGF reset does or does not represent good value for money,” said Brent Burton, senior performance auditor at the Office of the Auditor-General (OAG).
“At the moment we can’t see how it’s tracking.”
OAG staff appeared before the economic development, science and innovation committee this morning, following the office’s damning review of the Government’s monitoring of the PGF reset money.
The reallocation of the remains of the $3 billion fund took place during the depths of the Covid-19 pandemic, aiming to create jobs in the regions within six months. Funding was approved for several projects including in the rail, ports, construction and renovation, and workforce training sectors.
Burton said it was a time of uncertainty and Kānoa, the unit administering the fund within the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE), was trying to get money out the door urgently while dealing with staff shortages.
I suppose this might explain why the OAG doesn’t consider the $6 MILLION paid out in compensation by the cops using taxpayers’ money instead of claiming on their $20 Million Public Liability Insurance to be sufficiently significant to warrant investigating.
Or investigating the $1.5 million wasted on the Guru Gateway.
Banana republics probably point their fingers and laugh at NZ now.