Hamilton council 'whistleblower' calls for audit

Julie Hardaker. Photo / Christine Cornege

The man who blew the whistle on staff emails which shocked some Hamilton city councillors wants an independent audit of the entire organisation.

Former Hamilton City Council project manager Barry Easton raised concerns about financial information being held back from councillors regarding an upgrade of the central business district.

Now he has written to mayor Julie Hardaker raising more concerns, this time about two other large council projects.

Mr Easton, who resigned in June, has called on the council to investigate the entire cost of Project Phoenix - an upgrade of IT facilities costed at $12.88 million.

He also wants an inquiry into extra costs linked to the $68.4 million Claudelands Events Centre, suggesting the council go beyond general managers and talk to unit managers.

Mr Easton's concerns follow of the damning report on the V8 streetrace series issued last week by Audit New Zealand.

The audit criticised the quality and amount of information presented to the council and said it would have benefited from a better project management reporting system.

Mr Easton's email claimed said there was a lack of transparency in information provided to elected members and told the mayor to take a "very close look at the way financial information is manipulated".

Ms Hardaker told councillors she had not been made aware of the email sent to her office on Monday and responded to by her executive assistant, but she would contact Mr Easton to discuss his concerns.

She also planned to raise the matter with the council's chief executive, Barry Harris, who said he did not have time to comment to the Herald yesterday afternoon.

Councillor Ewan Wilson spoke to Mr Easton yesterday morning and said he was extremely disappointed about what he heard.

"I found him engaging and I found him to be credible."

He said Mr Easton made some serious allegations and the elected wing was looking into the matter urgently.

Councillor Angela O'Leary said: "The allegations state information possibly has been manipulated to suit the audience and I find that very disturbing."

Councillor Dave Macpherson was concerned staff felt they could not approach the chief executive or the elected wing about any issues. He said the council was taking the allegations seriously.

"We're concerned if there really is that culture, we're concerned about the information we are receiving in a number of areas. We would have to be a pretty stupid elected wing not to work hard and quickly get to the bottom of it."

The working party set up this week would scan the capital expenditure issues raised and councillors had already been asking questions about Project Phoenix.