Reports on Games figure ‘rubbish’

Press, 30 November 1989, Page 1

Reports on Games figure ‘rubbish’

PA Wellington A furor surrounding the Commonwealth Games Company chairman, Mr David Johnson, may end in court, according to his deputy chairman, Sir Earl Richardson.. “It’s the greatest pile of rubbish I’ve ever heard and I think it will end in court,” he said from his Auckland home. Sir Earl was commenting on reports of a police inquiry into the financial transactions of a Hamilton company, Dairy Containers, Ltd. The police have talked to Mr Johnson, as the chairman of First City Finance, Ltd, in relation to their inquiry into the complex transactions of the Hamilton company and in tracing $lO million. Sir Earl is a director of First City Corporation, the parent company of First City Finance, and said he had been since its inception. “I have total faith in David Johnson,” he said. Mr Johnson said he would not step down as head of the Com-

monwealth Games Company. “Why should I?” he said. “As far as I am concerned this is a quite, straightforward commercial transaction which took place some time in the past. There is no connection so far as I am concerned with any current situation,” he said on TVNZ news.

The Hamilton detective heading the investigation, Detective Sergeant Simon Friar, said he had spoken to Mr Johnson. “We are in possession of a large amount of papers that we’ve been supplied with and seized under search warrant, or search warrants. We’re considering both the verbal explanations given to us by a number of people and those papers and in due course we’ll come to a decision.” Earlier Mr Johnson said of the police inquiries that three people had been charged in Hamilton with some offences “and the police want to; clarify where those funds have gone. I was helping them and was able to give them some papers.”

Mr Johnson said he had been a director of First City’s management company, First Management, and a shareholder between 1983 and 1987. He had then sold his shareholding and resigned. Detective Sergeant Friar said the inquiry had nothing to do with the Games company. Mr Johnson was also backed yesterday by the Minister of Sport and Recreation, Mr Tapsell.

“So far as running the Commonwealth Games Company is concerned, Mr Johnson has my total support,” he said.

“He has assured me that his own actions have been entirely above-board and he will cooperate with police in trying to sort this matter out,” Mr Tapsell said.

Mr Johnson said in Auckland last evening that he was taking legal advice on a television report on his business dealings with Dairy Containers, Ltd. The method of presentation and implications made in the report were “damaging and untrue,” he said.