Spending at the Tauranga City Council while the council was governed by commissioners is under the spotlight. File photo. Photo: Screenshot / Google Maps
The Auditor-General's office will not look into spending by Tauranga City Council, but says the council should consider how it could make public information more readily available.
Several requests to look into spending by the council between 2021 and 2024 have been received by the Office of the Auditor-General.
The office wrote to council chief executive Marty Grenfell yesterday, saying it did not intend to do so, but asked the council to consider how it could make more information publicly available more readily, in order to ensure trust and confidence in its decisions.
Senior inquiries specialist Andrew Goddard said the investigation requests covered a range of issues, but were mostly decisions made while the council was governed by commissioners between 2021 and 2024.
The sale of the Tauranga Marine Precinct was one, while the civic centre project Te Manawataki o Te Papa was another.
Goddard said the issue of the marine precinct sale was considered by the High Court.
"We consider it unlikely that an inquiry would add further value. It would also be inappropriate for us to appear to second-guess the court's view," he wrote.
He said many of the issues raised with the Office of the Auditor-General related to land transactions by the council.
"We acknowledge that not all councillors or members of the public support the objectives the council was pursuing with these transactions. However, it is not our role to express a view on the merits of a particular decision or the policy behind that decision.
"The council's decisions to purchase or sell land, and why it does so, are policy choices for the council to make. It is also not for us to say whether the council has achieved an appropriate sale or purchase price - that is, whether any transaction is a "good" or "bad" deal for ratepayers," he wrote.
Instead, Goddard said the Office of the Auditor-General's role was to examine whether appropriate and agreed processes had been followed.
He said the council was able to explain its approach, including the policy trade-offs to decision making regarding the purchase, sale, or lease of property.
"We have not seen evidence to substantiate the concerns raised with us about the probity of the decision-making processes."
However, Goddard said it was sometimes difficult for the office to establish the process the council had followed, based on publicly available information.
"When the use of public resources has not been clearly or transparently explained, the public might make assumptions about what is happening and infer wrongdoing."
He said trust and confidence in council decisions might increase if it added more transparency.
Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
