Archive for February 2014
Auckland council naive about Identity and the law
I have it in black and white Auckland council have no policy with regards to trading with undefined or unidentifiable entities.
My long over due LGOIMA was addressed last night the actual response is here EY report response
I have referred to the actual report previously in the post The Ernst and Young report into Len Brown not worth the paper it is written on
The reason I asked about who the report was written by was because the report did not disclose who EY was and as I pointed out the report on its last page provides the definition for EY as being
EY refers to the global organisation and may refer to one or more of the member
firms of Ernst & Young Global Limited, each of which is a separate legal entity. Ernst & Young Global Limited, a UK company limited by guarantee, does not provide services to clients. For more information about our organisation, please visit ey.com.
© 2013 Ernst & Young, New Zealand.
All Rights Reserved.
If you visit the companies register you will note that there are several EY companies
ERNST & YOUNG NOMINEES (20067)Registered NZ Unlimited Company 7-Jul-67
ERNST & YOUNG LIMITED (437730) Incorporated 30-Nov-89
ERNST & YOUNG CORPORATE NOMINEES LIMITED (955165) Incorporated 15-Apr-99
ERNST & YOUNG TRANSACTION ADVISORY SERVICES LIMITED (953248) Incorporated 20-May-99
ERNST & YOUNG GROUP LIMITED (1221939) Incorporated 28-Jun-02
ERNST & YOUNG LAW LIMITED (2494153) Incorporated 20-May-10
Go to the intellectual property office and you will find that the trade mark EY is registered to EYGN Limited which is not even registered in New Zealand but is apparently registered in Nassau in the Bahamas. The general disclaimer with regards to that company can be found here
The person at Auckland Council who dealt with the request could well have assumed who the company was which prepared the and assumed wrong we will follow up requesting evidence .
As a private Investigator myself I find it most disturbing that a report has been issued which has no evidential value at all for the quoted price of $198,751. I have to wonder if that is before or after GST .
The law issue
I requested the legal basis on which this report was commissioned
the response states
The report was commissioned in accordance with s12(2)(a) and 12(2)(b) of the Local
Government Act 2002 (LGA). Additionally, the Chief Executive has broad power
under s42 of the LGA to ensure the effective and efficient management of the
activities of the local authority.
This response totally circumvents the requirements of the code of conduct elected members set out in part 8 and has requirement for an independent panel .
The sections which have been quotes in the response are nothing more than a brush off
12Status and powers
(2) For the purposes of performing its role, a local authority has—
(a) full capacity to carry on or undertake any activity or business, do any act, or enter into any transaction; and
(b) for the purposes of paragraph (a), full rights, powers, and privileges.
and section 42 sets out the general duties of the Chief executive
But when a specific duty is placed on the CEO that takes prescient over any general responsibility in this case the obligations were to the provisions of the code of conduct and an independent panel should have been appointed not an organsiation which had a pecuniary interest in supporting the Mayor .
Item 2 time sheets
In an open transparent and democratic society one would expect a bill for $198,751 to be explained . Private investigators work at $150 per hour this represents over 33 weeks of work , how many people worked on it and WHERE IS THE EVIDENCE .
The report is such that it has no accountability paying 200,000 for which amounts to unsubstantiated opinion is reckless.
Item 3 Engagement agreement dated 26 October 2013
I have to question the terms of any agreement between EY and Council. the previous CEO Doug Mc Kay was a member of the committee for Auckland and met with the members of this elite group behind closed doors without any requirement to report back to council see Download View as HTML
Membership to the committee for Auckland was justified as follows
Membership to this committee is an operational issue and was approved by the Chief
Executive, or his staff, within delegated financial authority. As such, no Governing Body
approval is required, nor is the Chief Executive required to report back to the Governing
Body.
Once we drew the attention of the CEOs placement on this committee to the attention of he world Stephen towns name was removed from the membership of the committee for Auckland .
Doug Mc Kay who was concurrently with being CEO of Auckland council a director of another committee for Auckland member BNZ .
It appears to me that a CEO who does not appear to know what conflict of interest is , spent more time instructing his fellow members of the committee for Auckland than properly consulting with the executive body of council who employed him.
We await with baited breath to see the path the new CEO follows, his removal from the membership of the committee for Auckland is a step in the right direction
Nothing trivial
Yesterday I was able to address the audit and risk committee ( although not uninterrupted)
I produced a power point the PDF of which is attached Nothing trivial
I had particularly wanted to point out the similarity between the Logo of AWINZ
With that of the signage on the council facility and vehicles
and that this was deceptively similar given that one is a council logo and the other a private logo used to raise funds from the public
I had also wanted to point out that Mr Wells had an intention of taking over the entire complex and had expressed this to the then minister ( AWS animal welfare services )
You will not find any discussion papers on council documents regarding this and I believe that AWINZ is an example of how council business units are being groomed for take over , using council funds to set them up and then go into private hands.
There is nothing to stop this as Councillors appear to be ignorant of corruption and I totally expect that you will do nothing about my presentation yesterday except file it. You will no doubt have moved a motion that my documents are not appended to the minutes and that is why I will publish them myself on my Transparency web site along with this email. Transparency.net.nz Nothing trivial
Please also refer to my post on Anticorruption .co.nz Does Auckland council condone Identity fraud?
While residents are asked to mow berms and have traffic tickets enforced on them for genuine mistakes and have historic debts enforced at great cost to the rate payers you appear to do nothing with regards to proven corruption within council.
Mr Singh who appears to be a little out of his depth on this issue in referring me to a Wendy Brandon email with regards to email censoring , could do well to meet with me , that way he might understand that there were five different entities who called themselves AWINZ only one of them was a legal person in its own right. There were also 3 AWINZ trusts , so he has to be particularly careful by saying that there is an injunction when I was not talking about the three people who took me to court but was in fact talking about a deceptively similarly named law enforcement authority which was operated only by Mr Wells your council manager from council premises. Any two year old can see the conflict of interest why are you blind to it ? I have to ask if it is willful blindness or plain ignorance ?
Please advise by way of LGOIMA what resolutions you passed with regards to my submission and what plans you have for investigation
Documents pertaining to this matter are available on the post Does Auckland council not know what corruption is ?
Does Auckland council not know what corruption is ?
In 2005 Neil Wells became the manager of Dog and stock control Waitakere . He set about re branding the council premises and produced new signage and logos.
Neil Wells at the time was running a law enforcement authority called the animal welfare institute of New Zealand from council premises using the staff and infrastructure to enforce the animal welfare law.. legislation which he had assisted in writing and advised on.
Just prior to the act passing into law Mr Wells made an application to the then minister of agriculture and bio-security for the Animal welfare Institute of New Zealand ( AWINZ ) to become a law enforcement authority under the legislation which he had played a pivotal role in.
The not at all minor issue which Mr Wells overlooked in the application was that AWINZ had not formed in any manner or means and because it did not exist as a trust as he claimed and therefore could not become a legal person as Maf had required it and expected it to be.
So in other words Mr Wells pulled the wool over the ministers eyes, and any other lesser mortal would have been charged with the very serious offence of using a document for pecuniary advantage or false statement by promoter ( 10 years ) .
Mr Wells worked with his associate Tom Didovich the then manager of Waitakere city dog and stock control. Didovich gave consents to the minister for Neil wells to use his fictional trust in the then Waitakere city and in North shore city , in so doing cutting out the the very inconvenient requirement to get consent of the Councillors.
Mr Didovich and Mr wells signed a Memorandum of understanding ( MOU )together and when trust deed were required Mr Didovich obliged by witnessing the alleged trustees signatures .
Now many of you will be jumping up and down and screaming conflict of interest by now but for our Councillors it doesn’t appear to matter , they are quite happy to consent to rate rises to cover this sort of thing.
Lesser mortals would also have picked that a trust formed 1.3.2000 could not make an application to the minister on 22.11.1999 but that is another story.
Any way Tom Didovich had to leave council because affairs of the heart ( or so I believe ) is something the council sees as a conflict of interest so Mr Wells has to apply for the position to keep the set up of AWINZ going.
With Wells ( a barrister ) at the helm the council premises are re branded.. could it be to to fulfill the intention he stated in the application to the minister under point 7 where he states that in the short term Animal welfare services (AWS ) will continue to be a business unit of Waitakere city council … it will be a linked organisation to AWINZ and its inspectors will interface with AWINZ .. in the medium term the business unit of AWS will be vested in AWINZ . All the assets of the AWS ( the animal refuge , plant and equipment ) will be transferred or leased to AWINZ….
So with this PPP idea in mind Mr Wells set about changing the signage of the council premises so that they were confusingly similar to that of AWINZ .( council are refusing to look at this they ignore it )
In 2006 Neil Wells through Wyn Hoadley (who posed as the chair person of the fictitious trust AWINZ )solicited donations for the Waitakere animal welfare fund there was also a collection box on the counter
the donation form states ” YES, I WILL HELP THE WAITAKERE ANIMAL WELFARE FUND … here’s my donation” MY CHEQUE (made out to AWINZ) IS ENCLOSED OR PLEASE CHARGE BY CREDIT CARD
The issue is that AWINZ at this point in time did not exist in any legal manner or form and only Mr Wells administered the bank accounts. .
I complained to council with regards to the logo being so close to that of the council buildings and the following year the same donation letter was produced with an amended logo and minus the council logo .
In December 2006 , that is after the first donation drive and before the second , Hoadley, Coutts Wells and Didovich ( yes the same one as before ) formed a trust which became a charity .
This charity is registered as
The Animal Welfare Institute Of New Zealand | CC11235 | Registered | 28/09/2007 |
Each year the charity is required to file an annual report and in 2009 the Waitakere account was identified as the no 2 account
This year the annual return shows the no 2 account being closed and fed into the general accounts .
I know a lot more about this money and have previous correspondence from council which acknowledges that Council is aware that a third party is dealing with council funds. So on seeing council funds being apparently misappropriated I do a Lgoima request
Today I receive a letter from council lawyer Jazz Singh which refuses the information I have asked for Auckland council Waitakere welfare response
Jazz refers to an email from Wendy Brandon. dated 13 February 2013 and it simply makes no sense that this email from Wendy has any relevance to this request .Brandon email 13 feb 2013
Jazz also quotes refusal by virtue of section 17 ( h) LGOIMA section 17 LGOIMA,
Now my question is why is it important to take residents and rate payers to court for historic unpaid metro water accounts using false documentation and why is it frivolous or vexatious or trivial to raise the issue of corruption , use of council premises for private pecuniary gain and misappropriation of charitable funds which were being held for council?
With regards to the metro water claims. Water care is taking a number of persons to court on Tuesday the 18th to enforce 7 year old debts to Metro water, these debts are not to water care and water care through its solicitors have sworn false affidavits ..
I have the evidence .. but Council just plods on and makes us accountable for things we are not accountable for and they ignore the criminal of fences which are going on around them.
Jazz we would love to have a response from you
No doubt the Councillors they will as usual ignore this .