Auditor fires both barrels on Defence double-dips

Lyn Provost. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Poor policy and a culture of following orders and not asking questions led to senior Defence Force staff double-dipping on accommodation allowances while working for the United Nations, a report has found.

Auditor-General Lyn Provost has severely criticised the Defence Force in the report, which dealt with the unlawful actions of four staff while they were seconded to the UN between 2001 and 2008.

The four - described as senior officers - claimed a Defence Force accommodation allowance as well as a rental subsidy from the UN. To get this, they had to make a false declaration to the UN.

The practice continued even after concerns were raised in 2004 and 2005. Even in 2007, when a complaint was made to the UN, an officer continued to be allowed to double-dip until June 2008. Up to US$90,000 ($125,760) was repaid to the UN that year.

Ms Provost said the process was flawed from the start. The Defence Force justified paying the allowances to bring the officers' pay into line with what they would have been earning if they had not been on secondment.

But the report said this was incorrect.

"The officers would each have been in a generally comparable financial position under the standard UN conditions ... They may even have been better off sometimes.

"The rationale for paying additional accommodation assistance to the officers was therefore never valid. The whole saga was unnecessary."

Ms Provost pointed to three key failures:

A strong silo mentality, which enabled people to see the issue as someone else's problem.

The military discipline of hierarchy and command lines, where people found it inappropriate to question decisions by their superiors.

A desire for practical solutions, which failed to give sufficient weight to fundamental public sector values such as integrity and the rule of law.

Ms Provost said "too many people" said that command requirements prevented them from raising concerns about what was being done.

"And too many people accepted it as plausible that they were being directed to behave unlawfully.

"The officers - all highly regarded and senior people - were all willing to accept as plausible that Defence Force headquarters was expecting or ordering them to complete a false declaration to manipulate financial entitlements."

Ms Provost found it "extraordinary" that any officer could see this as something that headquarters might require.

The report had recommendations to promote values "that clearly set the core public sector values of operating within the law, scrupulous honesty, integrity, transparency and accountability alongside military values".

The Chief of Defence Force, Lieutenant General Jerry Mateparae, accepted the report's finding and said they were consistent with Defence's own inquiry.

"These officers have already been censured, as were the two officers responsible for policy development at the time," he said.

"I take all of the Auditor-General's findings extremely seriously. I have undertaken to act upon all of the recommendations."

Defence Minister Wayne Mapp said obedience had overruled following the law, and that the findings of the report would be implemented.

BLIND OBEDIENCE

* Four senior Defence Force staff seconded to the United Nations double-dipped on housing allowances from 2001 to 2008.
* Defence Force staff who knew this was wrong did not bring it up, because of a command culture of following orders and not questioning senior officers.