Government-help abuse ‘not just gang problem’

Press, 4 February 1987, Page 29

Government-help abuse ‘not just gang problem’

PA Wellington Administrative failures in the public sector were not unique to Maori Affairs, said the Minister of Finance, Mr Douglas.

Abuse of Government assistance schemes was not just a gang problem, “although it may suit some people’s prejudices to see it that way,” he said.

It should be common knowledge that there were “massive problems” in the public sector. “These sorts of things have been going on for years and everybody knows it,” he said in an address to the Hutt Valley Chamber of Commerce and Industry. < However, the deliber-

ate, malicious abuse of public money must be one of the most minor and insignificant causes of waste. There was a much bigger problem in policy weaknesses and the system which administered these. Too often, the public sector system virtually invited exploitation by clients or employees, he said. Referring to a police report on funds going to gangs under the contract work scheme, Mr Douglas said the gangs probably were not doing anything illegal in obtaining the money — they were just pushing the system as far as it would let them.

“The amounts of money Involved are peanuts when you compare it with some of the other examples of waste.” “Give-away schemes like this have been created over many years.” Governments had boosted the number of people employed in State trading departments in an attempt to keep unemployment down. Those policies were an unmitigated disaster for employment growth In the economy. They allowed State trading departments to grow fat and inefficent and to drain billions of dollars but of taxpayers’ pockets, he said.