ICC festive lights prove a dim debacle

Many hands failed to make these lights work.

The Invercargill City Council’s chief executive Richard King has issued an abject apology over the festive lights fiasco.

As he should. Without consulting councillors, he okayed a trip for four council staff to Invercargill’s sister city Suqian in China, costing $21,000. They bought just $5500 in lights which, it turns out, fail to meet New Zealand electrical standards.

Among the travellers on this disastrous trip was the council’s roading manager, Russell Pearson, who was there, we were told, to ensure that the lights were suitable. Not his best work, then.

But if King’s apology would seem to let the mayor and councillors off the hook, at least in terms of public anger, we have a problem with that.

Mayor Tim Shadbolt, after news of the trip broke but before its failure was apparent, scarcely distanced himself from the decision.

Quite the reverse. Remember his column, in response to those who claimed the trip was unnecessary?

‘‘I don’t trust internet shopping . . .

‘‘Call me old-fashioned if you will, but I wanted our staff to visit [these] factories . . .’’

Staff, he said in a separate story, should be allowed to make decisions.

Councillors should be able to rely, to a considerable extent, on the expertise of their staff.

But that doesn’t mean that they abrogate their responsibility to make it clear that they must be consulted so they can ask at least the bleeding obvious questions on behalf of the ratepayers.

Cr Peter Kett, lately furious that the mayor and councillors have been made to look like idiots when ‘‘we didn’t do it’’ couldn’t muster any particular outrage when the delegation was dispatched without his knowledge at the time.

Back then he said it was money well spent because it made good sense to deal directly with the manufacturer.

That was before the staff stuffed up, admittedly.

At least Cr Ian Pottinger, before that happened, was publicly unhappy not only with the trip occurring, but with the preparation: ‘‘I cannot believe you have gone over there and you have no idea of price and you don’t have a design’’.

King can be believed when he said at the time that the trip didn’t seem like a particularly big deal. Therein lies a big problem. The extent to which no warning light seems to have gone off that, hmmmm, perhaps he better say something to the councillors beforehand tells us much about where those elected representatives feature in terms of the actual control of this city.