Talking Point: Right, says Fred, where is the missing information?

Fred Robinson is on a hunt for more information about the port.

I request help from the people of Hawke's Bay in my attempt to gain the facts for my submission to Hawke's Bay Regional Council (HBRC) regarding the future of the Port of Napier.

I was privileged to attend a Grey Power meeting on October 16 when representatives of HBRC spoke concerning options for the Port of Napier.

More importantly other speakers were able to present their views. One speaker in particular, Samuel Williams, employed by the Napier Harbour Board and then the Port of Napier for 43 years, impressed me with his knowledge of the history of the Port.

Samuel pointed out that the assets of the Napier Harbour Board were transferred to the Regional Council so that dividends on profits from the port could be distributed to stakeholders. The Regional Council was chosen because their database of stakeholders was already established.

He said "The Regional Council got the port, not because it was considered the best to oversee the operation, it was the organisation that could most effectively distribute the dividend".

Unfortunately, rather than good stewardship of an essential Regional asset, HBRC appear to have treated the port as a cash cow, which now appears to have been milked to exhaustion, and they now propose to sell off the carcass.

I intend to state in my submission: "My preferred option is for the ownership of the Port of Napier to be vested in a publicly (Hawke's Bay) owned independent body for the benefit of the people of Hawke's Bay".

However in attempting to discover why the Port currently has $86.6 million of debt, by examining the historical financial records, I have hit a brick wall because some records are currently unavailable.

In response to an Official Information Act request, for the port financial accounts for the years 2000 through to 2009, HBRC state "HBRC does not hold the information you have requested, your request is refused...". For HBRC not to hold the historical financial records for their wholly-owned company (the Port of Napier) is unbelievable.

The Port of Napier have annual reports, containing the financial information, available on their website for the years 2017 back to 2010. They advise me that previous years "are in archive" and that they are attempting to get these back now.

They could not provide any timeframe for this and pointed out that they were not going to drop everything to make these records available. I fully understand they are very busy people and I would like to help them out by obtaining that information from another source.

I had already prepared a spreadsheet showing: the income (revenue) of the port, profit after tax, dividend paid, bank borrowings and interest on borrowings for the years 2017 to 2009. This showed the port making massive dividend payments to HBRC while at the same time increasing bank borrowing to levels very near, or even greater than, their annual revenue. So to pay HBRC a dividend of $10.7m in 2017 from revenue of $86.7m the port had borrowings of $83.571m and paid the banks $4.156m in interest.

I began to see why some people would be reluctant for me to get my hands on further historical data (years 2000 to 2009).

So can the people of Hawke's Bay help me out?

Someone out there who was associated with the port, or had an interest in its operations, could have a copy of those financial records for the years 2000 through to 2009.

If you do please contact Hawke's Bay Today who will put you in touch with me. Many thanks.

■ Fred Robinson is a Hawke's Bay resident with investigative skills, keen to enhance resilience and prosperity for all in the province.