Email leak ‘not fair’: Tana
Outgoing Porirua Mayor Mike Tana is calling for an investigation after an email from the council’s chief executive was leaked – which he says potentially cost him the election.
His claim comes with the public release of an auditor’s report into his petrol card spending, which he says exonerates him.
Tana lost the city’s mayoralty to Anita Baker at the weekend, after a tumultuous final week of campaigning.
That included the leak of an email Porirua City Council chief executive Wendy Walker sent to councillors and Tana, outlining concerns about ‘‘unusual’’ transactions on the mayoral petrol card, about which she had initial discussions with police.
Yesterday, the council released a lightly redacted copy of an Ernst and Young auditor’s report into the spending, which Tana said exonerated him.
The report details Tana’s petrol use in the mayoral vehicle – which he has unrestricted personal use of – over seven separate occasions.
It found about 64 per cent of
travel on the days in question was for personal use: Tana made a couple of trips to Palmerston North to pick up one of his children, and drove another to his Wellington school.
The report doesn’t draw any conclusions from the findings, instead leaving Walker to evaluate the ‘‘reasonableness’’ of the petrol spending.
Last week, in the final days of his campaign, Tana refused to release the report but insisted its findings exonerated him.
Following multiple requests from Stuff, it was finally released by Walker three days after Tana lost the mayoralty.
Yesterday, Tana said the travel to Palmerston North was totally appropriate.
‘‘The mayoral car is mine for full private use, and I pay a salary reduction for that. Whether it’s Palmerston North or Levin it’s within the terms of me using the car.’’
The inquiry into the spending and his exoneration could have happened after the elections, he said.
The email’s leak and subsequent media coverage was damaging for his campaign, he said.
‘‘By putting it out in the public and alluding to the police and the Serious Fraud Office, made me guilty before trial and I think that’s not fair.’’
The chief executive should be investigating the leak of the email, and ‘‘holding people to account’’.
Walker said she would be putting the report on Tana’s petrol card usage in front of the new
council’s Audit and Risk Committee for their consideration.
‘‘I don’t propose to comment any further except to say that I have not progressed a complaint to the police. Mayor Tana was advised of this last week.’’