Councillors reveal financial interests
Home ownership dominates Kā piti pecuniary interests report
They say home is where the heart is — and it’s clear where elected Kāpiti council members’ hearts are with the 2024 pecuniary interests report showing that more than half of them own homes in the district.
Elected members have been required to declare certain pecuniary (or financial) interests since 1968, but since 2022 councils must publish a register of all pecuniary benefits of all elected members to improve transparency and avoid any conflicts of interest.
Sarah Wattie, Kāpiti Coast District Council’s governance and legal services manager and registrar, said a conflict of interest arose when two different interests overlapped and where a person’s duties or responsibilities to a public entity could be affected by some other interest or duty.
“There are two types of conflict of interest: pecuniary and nonpecuniary,” Wattie said.
“A pecuniary interest means a matter or activity of financial benefit to the elected member.”
The 2022 change was made when the Local Government Register Amendment Bill enacted changes to the Local Government Act.
“The aim of the changes was to record members’ interest so as to provide transparency and to strengthen public trust and confidence in local government processes and decision-making.”
This year’s pecuniary interests report
shows the majority of Kāpiti’s elected members own at least one property in the district, except councillors Glen Cooper, Sophie Handford, Rob Kofoed and Nigel Wilson.
Liz Koh owns two properties: a family home in Te Horo and a rental property in Paraparaumu.
Jocelyn Prvanov also owns two properties — a family home in Waikanae Beach and a rental property in Waikanae — along with two rental properties outside the district in Levin and Island Bay, Wellington.
Kathy Spiers declared that she owned a third of a family home in Paraparaumu Beach.
Four elected members — Mayor Janet Holborow, Cooper, Kofoed and Koh — also have beneficial interests
in their family trusts.
Handford declared that she had been awarded a Prime Minister’s Scholarship for Asia — and, similarly, last year she declared she had travelled to Thailand for a meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (Apec), paid for by the Centre of AsiaPacific Excellence and Apec Voices NZ Leadership.
Handford has also declared compensation for speaking at events and on panels this year and last year.
On the community boards, only eight of the 20 members own homes in the district — Waikanae Community Board’s Tonchi Begovich, Paraparaumu Community Board’s Glen Olsen, Guy Burns and Bernie Randall, Raumati Community Board’s Jonny
Best and Tim Sutton and Paekākāriki Community Board’s Sean McKinley and Christian Judge.
Two board members own two properties: McKinley owns family homes in Paekākāriki and Raumati South, and Judge owns a family home in Paekākāriki and a rental property in Riccarton, Christchurch.
While Raumati Community Board chairman Bede Laracy did not declare any properties owned, he declared a section in Levin owned through Cornerstone Raumati Ltd, of which he is a director and shareholder.
Five board members declared they had beneficial interests in their family trusts: Ō taki Community Board’s Cam Butler and Simon Black,
Waikanae Community Board’s Richard Mansell and Tonchi Begovich, and Laracy.
Mansell declared that the R & Y Mansell Family Trust in which he has a beneficial interest includes a family home in Waikanae, a rental property in Waikanae, an apartment in Wellington and a family home in Kuratau.
Ō taki Community Board member Jackie Elliott and Waikanae Community Board member Michelle Lewis have not yet declared their interests and Raumati Community Board member Karl Webber did not declare anything. i