News is breaking that a massive blunder has taken place in Auckland Council’s latest rates calculation, coming down to human error. It is currently unknown how many households have been overcharged for their rates bill.

Auckland Ratepayers’ Alliance spokesman, Sam Warren, said:

“People are going without to be able to afford their rates bill, and now we’re discovering the bills were wrong.” “We’re calling for an urgent inquiry into this blunder, and an immediate halt to all rates bills going out until we can have full confidence that the issue is resolved.”

“More than 600,000 households rely on Auckland Council to get this right – the team overseeing rates literally have one job. This is not hard or complicated work. Such a huge error has destroyed any residual trust we can have in our decision-makers and the so-called experts paid extremely well not to screw this up.”

“If IRD sent out the wrong tax invoices, heads would roll. We must hold Auckland Council to the same standard. These people are being paid a fortune – the least they can do is do their jobs correctly. It’s simply not good enough. Someone must be held accountable, now.”

“We are urgently requesting a meeting with Auckland Council officials so they cannot dance around the seriousness of the issue through their army of comms staff. Aucklanders deserve answers and accountability.”

“Until we have every assurance in the calculations, and until the officials at the centre of this are held to account, Auckland ratepayers must not pay bills that they have no way of knowing are fair or accurate.”

NOTES:

The Auckland Ratepayers' Alliance is a not-for-profit community group dedicated to championing prudent fiscal management of our Super City. Membership is free and open to all Aucklanders who sign up at www.ratepayers.nz.

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