How much money has Wellington Regional Council lost?

Lower Hutt Cr Chris Milne writes:

Total disaster for Wellington region ratepayers. As with the very successful Port of Tauranga, this facility should have been sold to investors who were prepared to take the commercial risks. Instead, ratepayers are lumbered with multi-million dollar losses. We are unlikely to ever learn the extent of the losses due to finances being hidden from view within a CCO.

The commercial building assets also lie empty and may have to be demolished. Another whopping loss, and GWRC were warned about these risks at the time they proposed building office space in competition with private landlords. They chose to ignore the warnings.

Some time ago GWRC exited its pine plantations. It is strongly believed that these were mismanaged, again with huge losses for ratepayers.

The bottom line is that councils should not be in business. That should be left to the private sector.

This is about this article reporting that Centreport is effectively inoperative and will remain so for many months.