Clayton Cosgrove

Spokesperson for SOEs

7 July  2013 MEDIA STATEMENT

Labour reveals asset sales cash cover-up

The Government has signed off plans to use money from asset sales to bail out crippled SOE, Solid Energy, Labour’s SOEs spokesperson Clayton Cosgrove says.

“Documents released by Treasury reveal that National is to use $100 million of asset sales money for the ‘recovery’ of Solid Energy.

“Solid Energy was held up by the Government as the jewel in the asset sales crown. It’s a sad irony then that cash from National’s asset sales sell-off is now having to be used to prop up the company because of the Government’s mismanagement.

“It’s another irony that Labour has only discovered this because of an obvious Government stuff up.

“That stuff up came in the midst of a dump of Budget documents where Treasury looks to have forgotten to redact a highly sensitive reference to the Future Investment Fund being used for ‘Solid Energy recovery facilities’.

“If you look to page one of this document it states that Cabinet has agreed to spend $616 million of the Future Investment Fund on the Christchurch Hospitals Rebuild ($426 million), Investing in Irrigation Infrastructure ($80 million), a National War Memorial Park ($10 million) as well as one redacted project.

“But page four of another document reveals that project as the recovery of Solid Energy.

“The spending is unmistakable. Both documents list the very same projects for the same $616 million price tag.

“The Government said it was going to sell assets to invest in ‘hospitals and schools’, not to pay for its mistakes.

“This is a cover-up gone wrong. National is misleading New Zealanders,” Clayton Cosgrove said.

REFERENCES:
Solid Energy money is blanked out in this document: http://www.treasury.govt.nz/downloads/pdfs/b13-info/b13-2590927.pdf

But not in this document: (Page 4) http://www.treasury.govt.nz/downloads/pdfs/b13-info/b13-2601164.pdf

ENDS

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