Ratepayers Must Not Be Made To Pay For Leaky Home Problems

Law Changes Need To Make Staff And Elected Councillors More Accountable.

Accountability Issues Must Be Referred To Independent Inquiry Into Rates

Ratepayers are not in any way responsible for ‘leaky homes’ and must not bear any of the costs of recitfying the problems.

Apart from builders, architects and others associated with the design and construction of leaky homes, the only other party who can be held liable appears to be the local council.

Now that a High Court Judge has issued a scathing decision against Waitakere City Council the Mayor of that city says the council must pay up.

While the council will probably able to recover some of the cost from its insurers, innocent ratepayers will be liable for the balance. And ratepayer-funded insurance premiums will rise.

And this is likely to apply right across the country.

It is time for radical law changes to protect ratepayers from the negligence of council staff – as in the Waitakere judgement.

And elected councillors should be made much more accountable for the actions of councils.

If councillors do not use their positions to protect ratepayers from liabilities such as this those same councillors should be made financially liable to some degree. After all many councillors, especially in the cities, are very well paid for carrying out their duties.

Central government muat also bear financial responsibility for problems arising from defective legislation and regulations.

The Local Government Act must also be changed to ensure that such financial responsibility is built into every additional duty that central government passes to local councils

Ratepayers are already charged for the cost of running council regulatory services – it is the councillors responsibility to ensure that those systems work correctly.

This latest threat to ratepayers make it more important than ever that the Independent Inquiry into Rates, set up last year, must also examine the whole function of local government – and the accountability of both council staff and elected officials.

ENDS

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