Secrecy over extra RWC costs angers councillor

Auckland Council chief financial officer Andrew McKenzie. Photo / Steven McNicholl

Senior officers are being accused of holding back information from Auckland councillors to stifle public debate on extra funding for the Rugby World Cup.

A furious councillor said chief finance officer Andrew McKenzie, rugby cup executive officer Rachael Dacy and one of her offsiders, Virginia Terpstra, were behind a move to stop councillors publicly debating all the issues of the extra funding at Thursday's council meeting.

The councillor - who spoke on condition on anonymity - accused the officers of "poor public policy" by delaying the release of a report to "force us to make a decision apace".

"Officers are treating us with contempt and we are getting a bit sick of it," the councillor said.

Officers have been cagey about the bill for gaining two quarter-final Rugby World Cup matches at Eden Park and probably a pool match from quake-damaged AMI Stadium in Christchurch. One source said each extra match would cost up to $1 million.

After Herald inquiries yesterday, Rachael Dacy said a public report on the relocation of matches with funding details would be released today with a confidential attachment that would unfairly prejudice council negotiations with Rugby New Zealand 2011 if disclosed.

She blamed the delay on the matter being endorsed by the Auckland Tourism, Events and Economic Development board last Friday - the day councillors received their council agendas and attachments.

Rachael Dacy said not all funding details would be made public.

Ratepayers are already contributing $100 million for the cup, including $65 million towards upgrading Eden Park and surrounding infrastructure and $35 million on running costs, such as traffic management and fan zones.

Citizens & Ratepayers councillor George Wood said he was not impressed with the reasons given by officers to debate extra cup funding behind closed doors, nor with the decision to withhold a report on the matter until closer to the meeting.

"I haven't seen the figures, but I understand it's not going to be peanuts.

"We have got to be open when we conduct our business because we are dealing with the public interest and public money."

Orakei councillor Cameron Brewer said he could see no commercial or legal reason to withhold information from the public on the extra funding.

Mr Brewer said he had real concerns that the Auckland Council was not pushing back enough on the costs from the Government's decision to reallocate cup matches from Christchurch to Auckland.

He said Prime Minister John Key had said the Government would meet the $4.1 million costs of fixing the uninsured turf at AMI Stadium because of a $10 million windfall gain from moving the quarter-finals to Auckland.

This is the third time council officers have been criticised over providing information to councillors.

Councillors were unhappy about information provided to them shortly before approving a $3.4 million budget for the Maori Statutory Board.

And planning officers were in the gun for a report to councillors on SkyCity's plan to take some airspace to expand its convention centre that left out critical comments.