Seven-year legacy of HNZ fraud exposed

National Party Housing spokesman Phil Heatley is alarmed by a massive seven-fold increase in fraud by HNZ tenants which has been tolerated by the Labour Government.

“The rate of reported fraud has soared from 101 in 2002 to 723 in the last financial year. And today we learn, five years down the track, that the investigations unit isn’t up to the job. What has Chris Carter been doing?”

Mr Heatley says a November 2006 report on the HNZ investigation unit recommends virtually the same changes that are being put on the table today, but ‘at the time of this review not all of the recommendations had been fully implemented’.

“In other words, they’ve already promised to fix this once before and they’ve failed miserably. What’s patently clear is that Mr Carter has known rampant fraud is a problem, but it wasn’t until National started asking the hard questions that the real extent of the dishonesty was exposed.

“National has been raising for 12 months allegations of subletting but even we’re staggered at the rate of dishonesty. Almost 600 of the 700 reported cases weren’t investigated.”

According to the investigation (which the Minister has had for two months but only chose to release today) ‘the unit is currently investigating the highest priority cases … however it should be noted that not all 2006/07 cases of subletting (though highest priority) are currently under investigation. There are nine cases of subletting referred in 06/07 that have yet to be allocated to an investigation at the date of this report’.

Mr Heatley says it’s hard to accept that suddenly Mr Carter is going to take fraud seriously, because “we’ve heard all the promises before”.

From ‘1 July to 1 August this year a further 65 cases were referred representing a significant increase in the rate of referrals’.

“So the problem is getting worse, despite that pledge in November 2006 to do better. This report also utterly fails to address the serious concerns about corruption levelled at HNZ in the subletting case, which embarrassed the Minister and sparked this inquiry.

“I simply won’t accept the Minister’s glib assurance that the corruption allegation has been properly investigated and is false. He’s misled the public before on the case, and I wouldn’t put it past him to do it again.”

Ends

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