In light of recent Facebook posts containing misinformation, Porirua City Council Chief Executive Wendy Walker has clarified the facts around the investigation into Mayor Mike Tana’s petrol card use.
The petrol card transactions in question came to the attention of a staff member responsible for monitoring the use of petrol cards. He escalated the issue because of the unusual activity.
Mayor Tana was given over two and a half weeks to respond to the Chief Executive’s requests to explain his unusually frequent petrol card transactions. He did not do so even after email reminders (16 September - first raised with him in person and then email reminders sent 19th, 23rd, 24th).
“I escalated the issue to the Office of the Auditor General on 27 September and advised Mayor Tana that on their advice I had engaged our auditors (Ernst and Young) to undertake an independent investigation. Mayor Tana undertook to get back to EY by 1 October but did not do so.”
On 2 October Mayor Tana provided the Chief Executive with reassurances that the card had not been used improperly, but did not provide details to explain the unusually frequent transactions. He was given a further deadline of 11am on 4 October. It was only after this final deadline had passed that the Chief Executive made initial contact with the Police and advised councillors on a confidential basis of her actions.
At that stage Mayor Tana was not “still working with the auditors”. In fact he had provided no factual evidence at this stage and there had not been any meaningful engagement with the Chief Executive on the issue.
“I felt that Mayor Tana’s non-response made escalation necessary. I am employed by the Council to ensure public money is spent carefully and within well prescribed limits. Keeping councillors informed of such matters is part of my role. Mayor Tana does not have an employment relationship with either me or the Council. He is an elected member and answers to the Council itself for his actions.
“It was certainly not my intention that the matter would be leaked to the media. I regard that as unfortunate and both myself and Mayor Tana have suffered ill-informed public comment as a result.”
The EY report recorded the additional information provided by Mayor Tana in relation to the unusual petrol card charges. Based on his information as recorded in the report, the explanation of the unusually frequent transactions was very high personal use (64% for the period covered). The Chief Executive had previously explained to the Mayor that the Remuneration Authority calculates personal use at 20% of overall use and that he needed to contain his use to this proportion.
Ms Walker says she was keen to release the EY report last Thursday so that it could speak for itself, but Mayor Tana objected to its release and he and his lawyer threatened legal action via emails.
“In the face of Mayor Tana’s request not to release the report I took time to make a considered response considering both his concerns about privacy and the countervailing public interest factors. After the delays involved in Mayor Tana considering the redactions proposed, this process wasn’t completed until Tuesday this week.”
The Chief Executive has not received a formal request from Mayor Tana to undertake an investigation.
“I have undertaken an internal review of the email traffic surrounding the leak of information and can confirm that there was no release of my confidential email to councillors from staff. I don’t have any practical way of checking councillors’ emails. My duty as Chief Executive is to treat all candidates in exactly the same way. My obligation was to follow a fair and reasonable process. I think I have done this.
“I have felt constrained in what I can say publicly but feel a need to clarify these matters now that there has been misinformation in the public domain. I have also contacted Mayor Tana to outline these issues.”
17 Oct 2019
