M.W.D. record defended by Minister, head

Press, 2 March 1984, Page 1

M.W.D. record defended by Minister, head

PA Wellington The Minister of Works, Mr Friedlander, paid tribute yesterday to the “truly outstanding record” of his department. Mr Friedlander’s comment came the same day his department’s permanent head, the Commissioner of Works, Mr R. G. Norman, made a speech aimed at “putting things right” in the row over Ministry management and costings for irrigation projects. Mr Norman said it was “patently unfair” for Dunedin staff generally, and to a lesser extent the whole departmental staff, to come in for a lot of criticism. Opening the Waiaua irrigation scheme at Opotiki, Mr Friedlander said errors had been made by his department in the Otago projects. “But under no circumstances should the problems we have be allowed to detract from the consistently outstanding achievements of the Ministry of Works as a whole, or diminish the recognition the staff deserve for their exceptional skills and their service to the nation. “One problem area should not be allowed to condemn the whole organisation and all those who serve it.” The controversy centred on one scheme (Maniototo) in a series of more than 40, Mr Friedlander said. The troublesome Otago schemes involve one project which was being constructed, and others which are at the detailed investigation stage. “For all but one there has been no more than an increase in the provisional estimates. “For all but one there

have been no cost over-runs on those projects.” Mr Norman spoke out against the transfer of the Ministry of Works’ district civil engineer in Dunedin, Mr John Walsh. Mr Norman told NZPA he had been “overruled” by the State Services Commission in Mr Walsh’s case, but it had granted concessions to the engineer. Unlike two other senior staff being transferred from Dunedin, Mr Walsh will move “at a time more suitable and convenient to him and to us.” “We are seeking opportunities which will enable him to take on a good career position out of the district and there are some opportunities coming up,” said Mr Norman, before he gave a speech in Wellington aimed at “putting things right” in the row over Ministry management and costings for irrigation projects in Central Otago. “Our own department has been a little saddened at my silence on this whole thing,” he said. In the speech to the Wellington North Rotary Club he said that before the commission took its own “summary action” every action save one was being dealt with by the Ministry. The one exception was the transfer of Mr Walsh. “While the commission has directed us to transfer those three persons they have respected my views in respect of Mr Walsh and he will not .serve the same notice as the other two,” he told NZPA. “He is in the same category and we have been able to gain some concession.” The Chief Justice, Sir Ronald Davison, had

granted an interim order blocking the enforced transfer to head office of the District Commissioner of Works, Mr Russell Bullen, and senior water and soil conservation officer, Mr Colin Reid.

The sitting on Wednesday was in chambers, and a full High Court hearing has been set down for April 9. Mr Norman told the Rotary Club yesterday that he and the Ministry’s corporate board of management had agreed long ago that the “task ahead in Dunedin called for a change in leadership, and action was already under way to achieve this.”

“This is not to say that the steps which I would have carried out would not have been accompanied by a lot of heartburning and condemnation.

“But' any such moves would have been made with more dignity, and hopefully more understanding. The succession of events has denied me that opportunity.”

Mr Norman also said that the Ministry itself had “strong reservations” about the viability of the full Maniototo irrigation scheme “on which we were eventually directed to proceed.”

The reduced scheme now approved by the Government was “much closer to an original option assessed by our people as having the best return.” He also said field and office staff were under continual pressure from many interested parties throughout the project to “come up with numbers before they had all the information.”

“There were occasions when our reluctance to commit ourselves to numbers was greeted with complaints about our lack of understanding or bureaucratic delaying tactics. “Small wonder that a harassed field staff, working long hours without respite, found it hard to exercise restraint and judgment.” Mr Norman answered criticisms about the Ministry’s financial competence — which have been made by a number of persons, including the Minister of Works, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and member of Parliament for Otago, Mr Cooper. Mr Norman said his Ministry had consistently advocated, for at least 18 years, the introduction of a modem financial management system. “Until 1981 we were constrained within the central government accounting system, which has widely recognised defects. “Notwithstanding this, the Ministry improvised its own procedures out was unable to overcome all of the deficiencies of the central system.

“It was only in 1981 that the Ministry was finally given approval to develop its own computerised financial accounting system. “At present a pilot scheme is working successfully in one of our districts and a case has been put to the Government to extend this across the department.” Mr Norman said he wanted to “get a few things straight for the record,” and that works staff were “entitled to a far better deal in all the publicity that they have so far received.” It was “patently unfair” for Dunedin staff generally, and to a lesser extent the whole departmental staff, to come in for a lot of criticism. “The Ministry has been in the business of developing New Zealand for the last 114 years. It is acknowledged internationally as having developed into one of the finest public works agencies of its kind in the world, having received great support over the years from successive government administrations. “The burdens of the future will rest heavily on those who have the power, but not the will, to see that this continues.”

The public was being (old that the Maniototo scheme had increased in cost from $5.9 million to $44 million in seven years, but the original approval in today’s dollars was $2O million in 1976, said Mr Norman. “We went back to the Government in 1980 and secured $32.5 million because of real increases in costs arising out of the initial estimates being too low, because the work was harder than we expected, and because there was a big change in the scope of the work, which now included a power scheme. “The final estimated cost to complete of $44 million was a little more than double — not seven times — the original estimate in real terms, and it related to a larger project than originally planned.” Mr Norman said the Ministry was being publicly pilloried for “letting the same thing happen again” on the Earnscleugh project. But new internal procedures which defined responsibilities much more clearly had enabled the Ministry to alert the Government to the increase in Earnscleugh provisional estimates. “There have been no cost overruns on Earnscleugh. There has been only an increase in the provisional estimates. “In a nutshell, two middle-size projects have shown up with problems. Only one of them has been committed, the other is still under investigation.” The annual spending on those projects would be less than 1 per cent of the annual sums the Ministry administered for the Government. Mr Norman said costly and time-consuming trial earthworks or drilling investigation work was not justified in the early stages of irrigation schemes, but a “rough order of costs” had to be produced for the local irrigation committee and for a feasibility report to be put to the Government. “It should be made perfectly clear that upper and lower bounds of such estimates can differ substantially. Indeed, such qualifications need greater emphasis, and to some extent in the phst we have not made this sufficiently clear.”