November 4, 2017 4:00pm by David Farrar

Smart move by David Clark

Health Minister David Clark has formally requested an investigation be made into alleged unjustified spending by the former chief executive of the Waikato District Health Board.

On 5 October, the Waikato DHB announced the resignation of their chief executive Dr Nigel Murray with immediate effect.

This resignation occurred part-way through an independent inquiry into alleged financial breaches during his tenure, which was never completed.

“I have written to Commissioner Peter Hughes today to request this action because such issues or allegations, especially relating to senior leaders in the public sector, risk damaging confidence in the public sector,” Dr Clark says.

“It is critical that transparency in and accountability for these processes and outcomes is maintained.”

Mr Clark’s letter to the State Services Commissioner has asked the commission to investigate the “unjustified expenditure by Dr Murray of DHB funds”, and any similar conduct by any other person within the DHB during the course of the independent inquiry.

This is a good and smart move. We should have an independent inquiry into what happened.

I’ve been pretty critical of the DHB Chair over this but to be fair to him this timeline shows he flew to Wellington to meet the SSC the day after staff alerted him to the issue. That’s not to say there are not still issues to answer – and the inquiry will help identify those.