Chief Reporter

Proposed Sale of Lyttelton Port Company

Keep Our Port Public Lays Complaints With Auditor-General and Ombusdman Against Christchurch City Council

The Keep Our Port Public coalition, which is spearheading the campaign against the Christchurch City Council’s (temporarily thwarted) proposal to sell the Lyttelton Port Company to Hutchison Port Holdings Ltd of Hong Kong, has laid detailed complaints against the Council with both the Auditor-General and Ombudsman.

These complaints are 12 pages long, extensively referenced and complete with appendix. The grounds cited fall under three headings:

Failure to undertake appropriate public consultation.

The Council’s decision-making process.

Misleading public information.

The question may arise – why persist with this when the deal is dead? Because it isn’t – it’s just having an enforced spell in the sinbin.

And if the deal is finally confirmed as dead (which is what KOPP is fervently hoping for), the way that the Christchurch City Council has behaved thus far has provided ample grounds for our complaints. We want to ensure that this whole fiasco does not set a precedent for the way the City Council treats its employers (the people of Christchurch) in future. The cornerstone of democracy is accountability.

ENDS

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