NZ Post chiefs deny trying to mislead MPs on report

New Zealand Post chiefs say they never intended to mislead MPs by denying they had a report about a troubled contract with South Africa Post.

It later emerged that they had received draft copies of the so-called Kroll report.

Chief executive Elmar Toime and chairman Ross Armstrong appeared before a parliamentary select committee yesterday to answer accusations of failing to provide information specifically requested by MPs doing a financial review.

The concerns relate to a letter Mr Toime wrote to the finance and expenditure committee last August saying NZ Post did not have a copy of the Kroll report.

The report, commissioned by the South African Government, was based on an audit of the postal service, including criticism of NZ Post’s handling of a contract to financially restructure the South African Post Office.

It was later discovered that NZ Post had received a “draft preliminary report” from Kroll Associates a month before it told the committee it did not have it.

The document NZ Post received was titled: Draft Preliminary Report of the Independent Auditors to the Minister of Communications of the Investigation of the Financial Affairs of the South African Post Office.

Mr Toime yesterday expressed “regret” at the perception he had misled the committee, saying he had no intention of hiding information. However, he believed his letter to the committee was “entirely accurate”.

NZ Post had never received a full and final copy of the report, he said. It had received only a working document which Kroll Associates had asked NZ Post to comment on.

But several MPs suggested he was splitting hairs and should have supplied whatever information he had from Kroll Associates.

Green co-leader Rod Donald asked why he had not told the committee that, while he did not have the Kroll report, he had related information.

Mr Toime said his decision that the documents from Kroll did not match those requested by the committee was backed by the NZ Post board, which discussed the issue before the letter was sent.

The issue has seen NZ Post became the first state-owned enterprise to be referred to Parliament’s privileges committee.