Council financial disclosures face independent review

FILE

Rotorua mayor Steve Chadwick announced today that an independent review of Rotorua District Council financial disclosures is to be commissioned.

The review is to be undertaken by an external professional accounting firm and will cover the last two years.

Mrs Chadwick said the brief would be to investigate the adequacy of past financial disclosures made to elected members, and those made to the public during long-term plan and annual plan processes.

"It will also seek comment on the framework proposed by management to control the council's finances and reporting procedures.

"In recent days and weeks public concerns have arisen over whether councillors in the past have had access to all the financial information they needed for making sound strategic financial decisions, and whether residents had access to enough information during annual planning processes.

"While limited disclosure of financial information has not been my experience since I've been mayor, I want to find out once and for all whether appropriate financial information has been disclosed in recent years, so we can put this question to rest and move on.

RDC chief executive Geoff Williams said he was talking with financial accounting firms around development of a scope for the review, an approximate timeframe and an estimate of costs, before proceeding.

"We intend getting this project under way very soon so we can get a report back to the mayor and councillors well before the end of this financial year. I would expect the outcomes of the report to also be made public," said Mr Williams.