DHB chief must explain his personal spending

The public service needs a culture of the utmost probity among its leaders.

The fact they are called “chief executives” nowadays does not mean they can assume they have corporate expense accounts.

That is why the personal spending of the former chief executive of the Waikato District Health Board, Dr Nigel Murray, matters very much.

Today we have outlined the full history of concerns about Murray’s personal spending, amounting to $218,000 of public money spent in international and domestic travel, hotels, meals, taxi fares, parking and so on, some of it on trips to New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Vancouver, Moncton, Montreal and Sydney during his three years in the Waikato job.

So much travel that reporter Natalie Akoorie reasonably asks, when was Murray doing the job he was paid $560,000 a year to do?

Corporate chief executives answer to boards who will assess their expenses against the value of the business they do. Public service heads have to justify theirs to the State Service Commission, which repeatedly had to send reminders to Murray.

When he finally furnished them for his first two years his were the highest from larger DHBs.

Waikato DHB chairman Bob Simcock said they were incurred on “legitimate DHB work”, except for excessive relocation costs when he moved back from British Columbia to take the Waikato job. They included six months at Quest Hamilton with a guest who was not his wife.

Last month he resigned, ending a DHB investigation, but new Health Minister David Clark has prompted a State Services Commission inquiry.

Murray must explain himself.