Housing fraud assurance required

new-zealand-national-party

Tue Oct 09 2007 13:00:00 GMT+1300 (New Zealand Daylight Time)

Housing fraud assurance required

Tuesday, 9 October 2007, 4:32 pm
Press Release: New Zealand National Party

Phil Heatley MP
National Party Housing Spokesman

9 October 2007

National Party Housing spokesman Phil Heatley is calling for the Minister of Housing to give his assurance that the September backlog of 1,164 cases of alleged fraud by HNZ tenants have been properly investigated.

"Today, the Minister restated that of the 1,164 referrals to Housing New Zealand Corporation's Investigations Unit, well over 700 have now been reviewed and closed, or referred for other types of action. That leaves 431 cases either waiting to be assessed or under investigation.

"How could the Investigations Unit properly review 700-plus cases in only 23 working days?

"Chris Carter is on the record as saying there are only four investigators, two administrators and one manager in the unit. Even with some help they could not possibly have accurately and thoroughly reviewed all these cases, given they had allowed a backlog of well over 1,000 cases in the first place.

"The confession by the corporation's deputy chair, Lope Ginnan, on National Radio may go some way to explain these shonky figures. She says that of the 700-plus reviewed cases, only 12% have actually been closed, leaving 600-plus cases still under some sort of action.

"Therefore, the real story is that of the 1,164 September backlog, 600-plus cases are still under some sort of investigation and 431 are still to be assessed.

"When will these cases be properly put to bed?

"I simply won't accept the Minister's glib assurances that these fraud allegations are being properly investigated.

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"After all, this is the same Minister who said in Parliament last November when warned of the problem, "I can assure this House that all allegations of scamming or dishonest behaviour by tenants are investigated" and "I ask Mr Heatley where the cases are. Perhaps it is time for that member to put up or shut up".

"I put up, but I won't shut up, because now we know that there are hundreds, if not thousands, of these cases passing through the HNZ bureaucracy every year."

ENDS

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