Vinsen said the council was paying $300,000 toward Te Mata Pūau, with a contribution from Horizons Regional Council bringing the total to around $425,000 for the year.
"Is there any accountability back to council for that? All it says here is that there are five hapū members and a project director."
Chief financial officer Mike Fermor said council had to look at the value Te Mata Pūau was bringing to the wider project.
"We're talking about a large, multimillion-dollar project – four complex projects around the river, a living entity. They are adding value to that project. It's not an ongoing year-on-year cost, but it's absolutely required to help us with resource consent, to help us navigate a fairly complex iwi world."
Te Pūwaha is operating under the legal status of the Whanganui River as Te Awa Tupua.
Chief executive David Langford said some of the value was in avoiding costs that would have been incurred if the group was not working alongside the council.
"A discharge consent for a wastewater treatment plant costs somewhere north of a million," Langford said.
"The process that this project has embarked upon has been to frontload the effort into partnering with iwi and hapū and getting agreement before we lodge and submit our resource consents.
"Potentially, compared to previous practice, that will save the costs that we're incurring now many times over.
"It is adding a lot of value to this project as well as supporting the council in terms of educating our staff and building our institutional capability to give effect to Te Awa Tupua legislation properly," Langford said.
Vinsen said the port update provided to the council by Fermor, together with projects director Rosemary Fletcher and general counsel Rob Goldsbury, provided no information about the budget.
He told Local Democracy Reporting he would like Te Pūwaha and Te Mata Pūau to report directly to council on their activities.
"Whoever the ratepayer is funding, I believe, should have an obligation to report back to those who are putting the money in."
He is also seeking the minutes of Te Pūwaha Governance Group meetings.
Mayor Hamish McDouall, a member of the Te Pūwaha Governance Group, said he had sought consent to distribute the minutes to the council following an earlier request for minutes by Vinsen.
But he said the governance group was an "umbrella oversight group" for four separate projects under Te Pūwaha, each of which had its own governance, reporting lines and budget.
In response to a question by Vinsen about whether the governance group had a budget, McDouall said it did not.
Langford added the group was not a traditional governance group tasked with overseeing the project itself.
"Te Puwaha [governance group] is there to provide guidance, oversight and expertise around the Māori worldview and values incorporated in the Te Awa Tupua legislation.
"It's more helpful to view them as expert advisers guiding us through how to execute this project in line with Te Awa Tupua and supporting the co-ordination of the four pieces of the respective projects so that they come together as a whole."
Langford said officers could provide budget information up to March 31 when ownership of the port project transferred to council-owned WDC Holdings. Updates from April would come through that structure.
Te Pūwaha Governance Group chairwoman Kahureremoa Aki told Local Democracy Reporting the group has always welcomed open conversations with all parts of the community.
She said Te Mata Pūau's leadership was inspiring and integral to the success of the project, and the governance group itself operated within a relational model that encourages connections, relationships and conversations.
"Te Pūwaha Governance Group empowers the operational group to get on with the job at hand, as we all work to bring abundance to Te Awa Tupua and its communities," Aki said.
The governance group is made up of community representatives Kahureremoa Aki (chairwoman) and Jock Lee, McDouall, Horizons chairwoman Rachel Keedwell, Ngā Tāngata Tiaki o Whanganui chairwoman Sheena Maru and Te Mata Pūau members.
The $50m infrastructure upgrade is a partnership project involving Whanganui iwi and hapū, and five groups invested in the project: Whanganui District and Horizons Regional Council, Q-West Boat Builders, Whanganui District Employment Training Trust and central government.
"This is a great project for Whanganui," McDouall told the council. "We're going to have a world-class facility. It's not going to be a deep-water port – we're never going to be Tauranga – but we can operate land-based marine industries and do it really well."
The four projects under Te Pūwaha are:
• Whanganui District Council – upgrading wharves 2 and 3, developing marine infrastructure, providing a hardstand and runway suitable for a 300-tonne vessel hoist and dredging to assist the local boat building and marine industries.
• Horizons Regional Council – strengthening and repairing the North and South Moles, reinstating the Tanae Groyne and upgrading erosion control structures along the south spit.
• Q-West boat builders – establishing a purpose-built facility and 300-tonne vessel hoist for new builds, repairs, and maintenance services.
• Port Employment Precinct Whanganui - providing specialist training, retraining and upskilling for port activities and users.
