More good stuff from Goff

The Herald reports:

The details of Goff’s policy on “sensitive spending”, flagged in December and still being worked on, could include elected representatives and officers having to release details of credit-card spending, including hotel, meal and entertainment costs, he said.

That would be a good step.

Goff was concerned at a 43 per cent rise in staff travel costs over two years at Auckland Tourism, Events and Economic Development (Ateed), saying he had received an assurance from the agency that there were robust business cases and spending was appropriate in each case.

This is the same agency that wanted to throw hundreds of thousands at a boxing match.

Also in good news:

Auckland Mayor Phil Goff has ruled out the city stepping in to host the 2022 Commonwealth Games, should Durban fall over as the host city.

South Africa’s sports minister Fikile Mbalula has cast major doubt on the Games, because of the costs involved.

He says he doesn’t want to raise expectations and say everything looks good, because it doesn’t.

“We gave it our best shot but we can’t go beyond. If the country says we don’t have this money, we can’t,” Reuters quoted Fikile Mbalula as saying.

Goff has told Radio Sport that 2022 would be too soon for Auckland to host the Games with the city already under incredible fiscal and infrastructure pressure.

A good call.