Council: Put amalgamation on hold

Napier City Council chief executive Wayne Jack. Photo / File

Napier City Council has asked the Local Government Commission to put its amalgamation process "on hold" while it addresses what the council claims are "serious errors and misleading information" circulated by the commission late last week.

But the commission is standing by the information it has published, a spokesperson saying it will respond to the council's concerns "in due course".

Wairoa and Central Hawke's Bay district councils have joined Napier City in expressing concern about the information, which is also summarised in a pamphlet being distributed to homes across Hawke's Bay this week.

The pamphlet says while the Hastings and CHB councils have higher levels of debt than Napier and Wairoa, their infrastructure "is in relatively better condition".

This claim, based on information taken from a 133-page consultants' report prepared for the commission, and a five-page in-house analysis, has been strongly disputed by Napier City Council (NCC).

As well as writing to the commission demanding the information be retracted, and complaining to the Office of the Auditor-General, the council has taken out a full-page advertisement in today's Hawke's Bay Today repeating its claim that figures in the reports are inaccurate by just under $1 billion.

In yesterday's letter to commission chief executive Sandra Preston, NCC chief executive Wayne Jack said if the amalgamation process was not put on hold, and corrected financial details published, the council would take steps "to demonstrate the clear bias evident in the attempts to mislead and misinform the communities of Hawke's Bay".

In its 133-page report for the commission, consulting firm MWH New Zealand admitted there were some "quite significant inconsistencies" in the financial information it collected from and about the region's councils, but that it was not material to the firm's overall findings.

"A more comprehensive exercise may change the degree of some of the conclusions reached but not the overall picture," the firm's report said.

Mr Jack said, in his letter yesterday, that assertion was "unsustainable" given the size of the difference in the value of council assets between the figures relied on by the commission and those calculated by the council.

According to the commission, NCC would have to spend all of its $78 million of financial reserves, plus a further $45 million, to bring its roading and water system assets up to the average standard of councils across Hawke's Bay.

But according to the council's figures, its infrastructure is worth $69 million above the regional average.

In today's advertisement, the council says it wants to "reassure" ratepayers that the city's roads and water networks are in good condition, and it says that was verified by an independent study it commissioned last year.