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18 January 2007
Mayor out of line on Tonga decision
The decision by
Manukau Mayor Sir Barry Curtis to send council staff to Tonga is
out line and not in the best interests of Manukau residents or
ratepayers.
Mayor Curtis today
defended the decision in a media release from the Manukau City
Council after significant concerns were raised by Howick
Councillor Jami-Lee Ross and a number of his colleagues.
The media release did
not explain why normal council decision making procedures were not
followed when commitments were made to the Tongan Government.
Mr Ross says he is
concerned that council staff are being removed from their day to
day responsibilities in departments where staff are carrying huge
workloads, and at a time when the Council is still recovering from
Christmas backlogs.
“The staff of the Manukau City Council are employed
to provide services to the residents and ratepayers of Manukau
City, not Nuku’alofa in Tonga. By committing council staff to do
work in a foreign country the Mayor and chief executive are taking
staff away from their normal council responsibilities.
“It is not the role
of the Manukau City Council to be providing town planning services
to overseas governments, especially when the Council’s own
performance is not up to scratch.
“Like many other
local authorities, we are struggling to employ enough town
planners to process resource consent applications on time and we
simply can not afford to lose staff in this area.”
Mr Ross says he is
also concerned that the decision to send staff to Tonga did not
follow normal council decision making, and was never discussed by
the council before the decision was made.
“At no time was this
decision discussed at a meeting of the Manukau City Council and
the Mayor has made a commitment to the Tonga government without
any mandate to do so.
“It is normal in a
democracy for decisions to be made through the appropriate
decision making body. In this case the Mayor was out of line and
Manukau City Council is apparently being governed by mayoral
decree.”
Mr Ross says since
raising this issue in local media earlier this week he has
received many phone calls from concerned Manukau ratepayers. He
and other councillors intend to pursue the issue when meetings of
the Manukau City Council resume in February.
ENDS
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