National Party MP Jami-Lee Ross is continuing to hound the health minister with his claims an audit has found hundreds of thousands of dollars of unauthorised and excessive spending at Counties Manukau District Health Board.
Jamie-Lee Ross Photo: RNZ / Alexander Robertson
State Services Commissioner Peter Hughes said he would urgently look at the questions raised and decide if any action was necessary to resolve them.
Mr Ross used the legal protection of parliamentary privilege to make his allegations in the House yesterday.
He claimed the investigation had identified remuneration and benefits to a senior DHB executive that were either unauthorised, excessive, or unjustified, and said the audit used the word 'fraudulent' several times.
In Parliament this afternoon, Mr Ross asked the minister, David Clark, what action he took when the Auditor-General's office raised the concerns with him on 29 January.
Dr Clark told the House he did get a letter alongside the other 19 DHB audit letters.
"One paragraph I think on page 3 of a 6 page letter does cover this issue, it is one of 21 specific significant points raised by the Auditor-General, and I took comfort from the indication that an indepenent external review into these issues was taking place."
Mr Ross pushed on.
"When the office of the Auditor-General told him it was leading a review into the financial practices at the DHB, what action did he take to ensure that the former chief executive of the DHB - Stephen McKernan, who was subsequently appointed at the Director General of Health - took no part in decision making about reviewing an audit that Mr McKernan was mentioned in."
Mr Clark told Parliament he had no knowledge that Mr McKernan was mentioned in that audit.
"But I trusted Mr McKernan to manage any conflicts appropriately, that's my experience of him."
Mr Ross then asked whether he discussed with, or asked for a briefing from, Mr McKernan when he was considering removing two CCDHB board members.
Mr Clark replied that Mr McKernan did mention the audit investigation that was going on.
"It would be no surprise, I don't think, to the House that I have had plenty of conversations around Counties Manukau in my time as Health Minister, but the removal of those board members - my decision to refresh the leadership at Counties Manukau - had absolutely no connection to that audit investigation that was going on."
Mr Ross asked Dr Clark if the State Services Commissioner was looking into the claims he made in Parliament yesterday and whether the minister would consider asking the Auditor-General's office to look at his decision to remove the two board members.
Mr Clark replied "no", adding that the two matters were not connected.