Kāinga Ora was slammed yesterday following revelations it spent $1.2 million per apartment build, as part of its new Meadowbank complex.

“This appalling cost warrants urgent review across the organisation.” said a Taxpayers’ Union spokesman, Sam Warren.

“A Select Committee is needed to determine what went so wrong, with powers to compel witnesses under oath. Accountability needs to be shown.

“This is either an example of the former Labour Government’s ‘build-at-all costs’ philosophy that saw Kāinga Ora rack up $12 billion of debt in just 5-years, or something even more insidious is going on within the agency.

“These revelations come less than one week after former Board member, Philippa Howden-Chapman, criticised the Government’s review into Kāinga Ora in her resignation letter, claiming the scrutiny would further exacerbate homelessness.

“We cannot allow thinly veiled attempts to exonerate accountability and stop improvements. It's critical that Kāinga Ora is both effective and sustainable. If we find ways to do more with less, more homes would be built – plain and simple. But when KO fails to build lower spec’d homes at unacceptably higher costs than other developers, something must be done.”

NOTES:

The New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union is an independent and membership-driven activist group, dedicated to being the voice for Kiwi taxpayers in the corridors of power. Its mission, lower taxes, less waste, more accountability, is supported by 200,000 subscribed members and supporters.

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