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Mid March 2011 Edition ----

A summary of our evidence re the Feltex Carpets case is being maintained here.

We are concerned that the road toll has not been amended to include those killed in vehicles, mainly buses, on inner city Christchurch streets. The Road Toll for February is one big lie. The risk to bus patrons as they linger about these risky places every day is well known. The deaths are road deaths and must be counted as such when they occur. Bus travellers must be made aware of these risks. Saying that there have only been two road fatalities in Canterbury for the year to date is one big lie. We don't know how many there has been but the number is probably closer to 22.

The extra deaths are the result of well known risks with respect to the safety of certain roads, namely those adjacent to high rise buildings. The longer you linger there the greater the risk and if you are lingering there in a vehicle your ability to escape falling debris is minimal, especially if you are not the driver. Deaths from this specific known road risk must be counted when they come home to roost. All deaths caused by dangerous roads must be counted in the road toll. Sure this type of death and injury occurs mainly when there is a bad earthquake. But the possibility of an earthquake is an ever present risk. People have the right to reconsider their means of travel by studying objective information as the Road Toll count should be. At the moment the Road Toll information is crooked and the well paid compilers of it should be in trouble for their wilful misinformation. They think they have the right to misinform the public.

It might be true to say that all the city was dangerous when the earthquake was on but the roads where people linger in buses is most particularly dangerous, probably 100 times greater. These people died primarily because they were on particular high risk roads.

Now back to basic accounting and in particular the scandalously poor accounting pertaining to the Accident Compensation Corporation. This Corporation has been and is run by the Government to leak cash for all sorts of purposes. The Corporation is audited by a particular partner of Ernst and Young, that close friend of the Government but not the public. And the chairman of ACC is currently a former quite long time partner and chief executive of Ernst and Young. How nicely "in the family" can you get. Not much of the chairman has been heard lately. Anyway some months back the Minister of the ACC, announced a Serious Fraud Office investigation into the management of ACC's office properties which it tends to rent off the commercial sector.

The ACC of course has a huge investment portfolio some of which no doubt is in real property. But it would seem that in general it does not own the buildings it occupies. It somehow wants to transact with the commercial sector to increase the possibility of leakage.

Dr Smith had apparently been told by some of his Nelson constituents that the Corporation appeared to be paying a very high long term rental for its Nelson offices and the building had been sold for a very tidy sum. About the same time it was announced that the corporations office property manager, or some such title, probably one Malcom Mason had been sacked for failing to follow his instructions. Which of these two happenings came first we are not quite sure. Did Mr Mason get sacked because they started to take action on Dr Smith's initiative? Or did they decide that Mr Mason was personally benefiting too much from the leaky corporation syndrome so action had to be taken, and Dr Smith took the opportunity to be the wise guy. Anyway on 15 March Mr Mason was sentence to 11 months imprisonment at his luxurious, we suspect, Miramar home, with, we suspect, panoramic views. The crime was receiving about $150,000 from a contractor in return for giving him "information" on the Corporation's Whangarei office property. Now it could be that further charges against him will arise which will put him in a proper jail. But we suspect that they have just picked out one incident and that is where the matter will rest.

The person who paid the $150,000 has also been arrested, one Gregory Hutt. He apparently is a building interior fitter who has been doing a lot of work for the ACC. Possibly his high priced tenders just keep on winning because he knew how to share his profits. But in this case it seems he might have bought the Whanarei building knowing the ACC were "keen" to lease it long term for a decent rental. Mr Hutt lives in Roseneath we understand, with views of the harbour and right up his namesake valley. We expect that his interior partitioning will be spot on and this property will become one of the greatest prisons yet. Perhaps there is some hope for the common thug now that these fantastic prison upgrades are underway.

The ACC audits are done we think now by Simon O'Connor of Ernst and Young using Ernst and Young staff. He hasn't been at it long at the job. Perhaps he has caught up on a few things.

But it appears that in the past internal control measures have not been taken very seriously by the auditors. Who supervised Mr Mason and who deputised for him? Did he take regular annual leave. Did he have a degree in property management. Who tendered for work he tendered out? Were the tenderers similar to that for similar work in the Government and private sector. Were rental prices paid similar to that of other businesses? We think there has been some sort of agreement that the auditors would not look too closely at these matters.

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