\u201cThe SFO has noted the published report and will consider the matters raised by the OAG [Office of the Auditor General],\u201d a spokeswoman for the office said.<\/p>\n
Paul Eagle was Labour MP for Rongotai for two terms from 2017-2023. Photo \/ Mark Mitchell<\/p>\n
Local Government Minister Simon Watts said he had requested advice from officials, who he said are \u201cclosely examining the report to determine what action or oversight may be necessary\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a very serious matter, and the community deserves accountability,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u2018Unacceptable\u2019, \u2018misleading\u2019: What the investigation found<\/p>\n
Much of the report<\/a> centres around the spending of council money on Eagle\u2019s council-owned residence on the Chatham Islands.<\/p>\n It found Eagle, who took on the role in 2023 after an unsuccessful mayoral bid<\/a>, was wrong to oversee the project to upgrade the property, because he stood to benefit from the spending.<\/p>\n The costs increased after Eagle took control of the project, including him purchasing premium German appliances for the kitchen, and continuing work on converting the garage to guest accommodation even after his council said no.<\/p>\n The project\u2019s budget ballooned to $460,000.<\/p>\n The report also probed consultant spending by Eagle, including a failure to manage a conflict of interest when his wife was proposed to be hired as a sub-contractor.<\/p>\n Eagle engaged with consultancy services with a supplier he had a \u201cpre-existing connection\u201d with, and was not transparent with his council about spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on consulting services.<\/p>\n Throughout the investigation, Eagle provided documents which had been \u201caltered or created\u201d by him to paint an inaccurate picture of his spending, including adding another person\u2019s signature to them, the report said.<\/p>\n While he initially claimed the quotes and contracts were made by others, he later changed his position and said he made the documents himself.<\/p>\n \u201cRather than provide an accurate record of events, the information that the chief executive provided was misleading, specifically, it created an incorrect picture about when certain events occurred (for example, when a contract was signed) or whether they had happened at all.<\/p>\n \u201cWe consider that the chief executive\u2019s actions were unacceptable and demonstrated exceptionally poor practice and judgment\u201d.<\/p>\n In a letter attached to the report, Eagle said he acknowledged the serious issues identified.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile I do not agree with everything in the draft report, I accept and take ownership of the concerns about my performance and apologise for any impact it might have.\u201d<\/p>\n Eagle said that because he was required to start in the role earlier than anticipated, due to illness of the outgoing chief executive, he \u201cdid not receive a formal, structured induction process covering the policies, processes, systems and documentation expected of the role\u201d.<\/p>\n Eagle declined to comment when the Herald visited his Wellington home on Friday.<\/p>\n Ethan Manera<\/a> is a Wellington-based journalist covering Wellington issues, local politics and business in the capital. He can be emailed at ethan.manera@nzme.co.nz<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThe SFO has noted the published report and will consider the matters raised by the OAG [Office of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":327972,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[806,49755,3937,40570,18205,5205,75819,3009,3938,61101,2740,3561,296,12898,3096,6368,111,43,139,69,1118,6270,1523,17357,205,312,1238,2044],"class_list":["post-327971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-as","tag-chatham","tag-chief","tag-considering","tag-considers","tag-council","tag-eagle","tag-eagles","tag-executive","tag-findings","tag-former","tag-fraud","tag-into","tag-investigation","tag-islands","tag-mp","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-office","tag-over","tag-paul","tag-role","tag-says","tag-serious","tag-time"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=327971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327971\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/327972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Paul Eagle, a former Wellington Deputy Mayor, ran for the Wellington mayoralty in 2022, losing to Tory Whanau. Photo \/ Mark Mitchell<\/p>\n