Gannin Ormsby, Nanaia Mahuta's husband, alleged DoC staff members were politically motivated in terminating the contract. Photo / NZME
Cabinet minister Nanaia Mahuta’s husband Gannin Ormsby laid a formal complaint related to the management and termination of a $52,000 consulting contract his company held with the Department of Conservation (DoC).
The majority of his grievances, however, were rejected by the department, and his subsequent effort to seek remedy through the Conservation Minister appears to have failed.
The complaint, initially made on November 7 and expanded thereafter, claimed that Ormsby’s business, Ka Awatea Services (KSA), had been harmed through “perceived non-delivery of the contract” and that fault for the termination lay with the department.
Upon review, however, DoC rejected Ormsby’s main contentions, including the allegation that the department’s “negligence” and “mismanagement” of the contract were the cause for its termination, after paying out just $11,800 (all figures exclude GST).
DoC’s findings were made by “desktop” internal review of written material related to the matters, and it responded to Ormsby in mid-December.
The Herald obtained Ormsby’s complaints and DoC’s response and file note, as well as related emails, under the provisions of the Official Information Act.
The department’s letter of response did accept a “regrettable” handover of the contract during staff changes, and it acknowledged a “lack of continuity in engagement and communication” provided to KAS, with “less support from the department than it aspires to provide”.
However, it claimed key pieces of work provided by KAS did not meet the benchmarks and expectations that were set out both in the contract and in a scoping document, completed by KAS at the start of the project.
“Ka Awatea itself, identified it could not achieve what had initially been scoped and agreed. Therefore the department rejects that its management of the contract was a root cause for termination of the contract,” the letter claimed.
The department declined to make a formal apology to Ormsby, as he’d requested, and neither did it accept, as was alleged, that DoC’s communications about the contract with external parties, including the NZ Herald, had misrepresented the situation. It allowed, however, that “on balance” it could have provided the Herald with “more context”.
It also dismissed Ormsby’s allegation that several DoC staff members who dealt with the Herald were politically motivated in their actions.
In the course of making his complaints Ormsby copied successive Labour ministers for conservation into his correspondence with officials.
Remaining dissatisfied with the department’s response to his complaints, on December 19 and again on February 17, Ormsby requested a meeting with DoC’s director general, Penny Nelson.
Nelson refused the request and told Ormsby she considered the matter closed.
Thereafter, Ormsby endeavoured to take up the issue with Minister for Conservation, Willow-Jean Prime.
That request, a spokesperson for the minister said, was refused, and Ormsby was, again, told his ongoing grievances were better directed to the Ombudsman’s office.
Prime’s spokesperson emphasised that the quarrel was an operational matter, and not something the minister sought or chose to be involved in.
In response to the Herald’s questions, she said that neither minister Mahuta nor her office was ever consulted on the matter, either by minister Prime or by her staff.
Minister Mahuta has never held ministerial responsibility for DoC.
Both Prime and former Conservation Minister, Poto Williams, were briefed by the department on the Ormsby complaint. Williams, no longer a Cabinet minister, did not respond to the Herald’s questions.
Ormsby did not respond to the Herald’s emailed questions and requests for comment.
Gannin Ormsby is the sole shareholder of KAS, and he, his nephew Tamoko Ormsby, and his nephew’s wife Waimirirangi Ormsby nee Koopu Stone, are its directors.
The firm came under close scrutiny last year when details of its work for government agencies came to light.
In late 2020 and early 2021 KAS (and a second consultancy, Kawai Catalyst, owned by Tamoko and Waimirirangi) won contracts with four public agencies. The questions raised around procurement and possible conflicts of interest prompted first the Opposition and then the Government to seek a review.
A Public Service Commission probe found sub-standard conflict of interest processes across three of the public agencies. There were no conflicts of interest related to the DoC contract; Mahuta has never held ministerial responsibility for the department.
The review did, however, identify poor contract management. As a consequence, the department said it is strengthening its contract management and monitoring processes.
The PSC found no evidence of favouritism or bias due to the firms’ connection with the minister. The PSC’s remit did not extend to the conduct of either politicians or KAS staff or directors.
Mahuta has said that she’s been “assiduous” in declaring and managing any conflicts of interest “in accordance with the Cabinet Manual” and that she has had no say in any contract level approvals.
The contract between KAS and DoC was aimed at improving the inclusion of young Māori (rangatahi) in the department’s work. Its most valuable payable milestone was the provision of a regional register of young Māori advisers and their specialist areas, on which DoC could draw.
It was signed on November 7, 2020, and its first work product was a “preliminary scoping” document which laid out the project, and specified the work to be provided over the course of the contract.
While the contract document states that the first payment of $11,800 was due “upon signing”, it was noted in correspondence between officials that the payment was tied to the provision of the scoping work, supplied on November 27.
The contract schedule laid out a further four milestones associated with payment: a “regional register” of rangatahi ($14,100 due 08/01/2021); a “proposed advisory model” ($6000 due 29/02/2021); “identification and proposed models of rangatahi projects” ($9800 due 12/03/2021); and, “final report and recommendations” ($10,374 due 30/5/2021).
Emails and other documents show that the deadlines set out in the contract were almost immediately missed.
Between December 2020 and early March 2021, the contract’s second, third and fourth deliverables (two of which were milestones associated with payment) were due but undelivered.
In mid-March a KAS representative wrote to the DoC contract manager: “I have been meaning to catch up with you … my timelines for a lot of mahi have gone up the whack. Hoi anoo, I am still chugging on the mahi itself, just haven’t reported on it yet.” The note is partially redacted.
Thereafter, a change in DoC staff resulted in a new contract manager.
On June 3, after all deadlines for the original contract had expired, KAS provided DoC with a “re-scope and revision” of the contract, including a new timeline. A meeting with the new contract manager appears to have followed on June 9.
Thereafter KAS provided a second piece of work on July 1 and a third on August 4, and a third DoC manager took responsibility for the contract. Communication between the parties then lapsed until DoC resumed efforts at contact with KAS in June 2022.
Among the department’s mis-steps was its termination letter, which was issued on August 26, 2022, and was subsequently reissued on September 8 to account for its initial failure to appreciate how many pieces of work KAS had submitted.
In its initial termination letter to KAS, DoC stated: “no deliverables have been produced since the preliminary scoping to framework the working schedule, delivered on 27 November … Under the contract a final report and recommendation were due by 30 May 2021. As no final report has been received and no final progress on completing the contract has been made, I have decided to terminate the contract … I acknowledge that a lack of engagement from both sides contributed to the lack of progress.” It noted that termination was on a “no fault basis”.
Ormsby responded at the time to say that further work had, in fact, been submitted, and DoC subsequently issued a second letter: “I would like to confirm the department received a deliverable document and a second milestone report. These were both received by the department, but due to changes in staff circumstances within the department, they were not assessed, but do not appear to meet the criteria of the deliverables specified in the contract. As a result no further payment will be made. I acknowledge that a lack of engagement from both sides contributed to the lack of progress.”
The department’s file note, produced as a result of the review in December 2022, elaborated.
It noted that the second work product (a draft report) submitted by KAS “captures a hui held in June 2021. The Kaupapa of Toa Taua Taiao [the project name] was not linked to (”formally associated with”) the contract for the department (page 11). The document does not correspond to the expectations outlined…”
In addition, though unmentioned by DoC, much of this draft report was also substantively similar to a report KAS submitted to the Ministry of Māori Development (Te Puni Kōkiri), also in 2021, to fulfil the terms of a $28,000 grant the company received for the project.
The DoC file note regarding work product three stated that the work did not identify rangatahi for a register, and the bulk of the milestone’s constituent parts were not provided.
Ormsby updated his formal complaint to DoC on December 6, subsequent to an OIA response he’d recently received.
Among the additional information he provided to the department was that a meeting between KAS and DoC contract manager Tame Malcolm had taken place on June 9, 2021; a point on which the department had previously been blind (in January 2023 DoC’s OIA team informed Ormsby that the meeting with Malcolm had not been included in his earlier OIA response because Malcolm had been unable to recall a meeting with KAS).
Ormsby also complained that DoC had given KAS an “incorrect reason for termination [of the contract]” in its first termination letter, and he objected to the way DoC had framed its own actions in releasing information, under the OIA, to external parties.
DoC considered Ormsby’s additional submission in relation to its then-ongoing review, and ultimately concluded that it “did not materially alter the findings”.
A department spokesperson said DoC “considers all matters raised by Mr Ormsby in his complaint to the department have been investigated and closed. This includes concerns over the OIA process.”
'I can imagine people being outraged that TVNZ signed a deal with me.'