Auckland roading subcontractor who gave bribes for contracts sentenced to home detention

The Serious Fraud Office charged a group with over an alleged road bribery scheme. Photo / Dean Purcell

A subcontractor who gave bribes for road maintenance contracts in Auckland has been sentenced to home detention.

Richard Motilal, who was a director of Engineering and Aviation Supplies, admitted three charges of corruptly giving gifts to an agent in February.

Today, in the Auckland District Court, he was sentenced to nine months’ home detention and ordered to pay $25,000 in reparation.

Motilal was one of four subcontractors prosecuted by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) over the alleged kickback scheme, along with Broadspectrum roading contract manager Jason Koroheke.

Koroheke, who has pleaded not guilty, is alleged to have benefitted by more than $1 million.

Frederick Pou and Jeanette Pou, the directors of Coastal Roading Contractors, and another subcontractor who has name suppression, have also pleaded not guilty.

They are due to stand trial alongside Koroheke in July next year.

The SFO alleges the Pou couple gave bribes to two employees of Broadspectrum, previously Transfield, for roading work in South Auckland.

The subcontractors, the SFO claims, also submitted real and fake invoices to Broadspectrum, which were allegedly authorised by Koroheke.

Once Broadspectrum paid the subcontractors, the SFO alleges they used the funds to provide gifts to Koroheke in the form of cash, goods or services.

Broadspectrum’s former maintenance manager Aurelian Mihai Hossu, also known as Michael Hossu, pleaded guilty in April last year to four charges of accepting giifts by agent.

He was sentenced to 11 months’ home detention in June last year.

In a separate case, the head of roading contracting business Projenz Stephen Borlase was jailed in 2017 for what was New Zealand’s largest bribery prosecution.

An investigation by the SFO found Borlase bought-off Auckland Transport and Rodney District Council officials, including Murray Noone and Barrie George, in exchange for contracts worth tens of millions of dollars between 2005 and 2013.