A man accused of multi-million dollar fraud told a High Court jury in Dunedin today that he had been a top employee of the Otago District Health Board.
Dunedin man Michael Swann, 47, former chief information officer of the board, and his friend Kerry Harford, 48, both deny
dishonestly and fraudulently obtaining $16.902 million from the board between August 2000 and 2006.
The crown says they charged the board for risk mitigation insurance services which were never provided and which Harford's company, Sonnford Solutions, the name on the 198 invoices, could not have provided.
Swann's lawyer, John Haigh QC, reminded the jurors of the need to analyse the intention behind Swann's action, the Otago Daily Times website reported.
He said the key element might be whether Swann had the honest belief the contracts Sonnfords had with the board were genuine and provided "value for money".
Swann told the court that when he was hired by Healthcare Otago in 1998, the hospital IT department was "going absolutely nowhere".
It had become "stagnated from overburdening paperwork".
Swann said he had streamlined the introduction of new users onto the system so they became a user on the system "before they got paid".
And with the help of Mark Black and "some of the other very competent team members", he upgraded the system until, by the time his employment was terminated in 2006, the boards IT department was seen by other hospital boards as one of the top performing IT departments in the country.
It was rated in the top 50 in Management Information Systems magazine rankings.
Yesterday a senior Serious Fraud Office investigator said yesterday he believed that Harford was acting as a "buffer" for Swann who received 90 per cent of the cash taken.
David Osborn said that on the basis of records he saw Sonnford provided no services to the hospital.
It appeared Harford received 10 per cent of the $16,902,145 because of his role as a buffer between Swann and the board.
- NZPA
