Immigration Minister Erica Stanford says information she was provided about a botched $33 million immigration technology project was "diametrically opposed to the truth".
An independent review into the biometric capability update project has prompted the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) to welcome a separate Public Service Commission investigation into integrity issues it uncovered.
The project was supposed to modernise Immigration New Zealand’s identity management system, but was discontinued last year after delivering no measurable benefits – at a cost of $33 million.
The review found that the project had cycled through a dozen project managers, brushed aside warnings that it wouldn't deliver, and gave ministers misleading advice about its progress. It also found claims of “creative accounting”, driven by efforts to stay under the $35 million Cabinet funding threshold.
The Immigration Minister told Breakfast this morning she was still digesting what was revealed in the report, but said the issues described were “extraordinary” and “not great for the public service”.
“I want to make clear though, I have a wonderful team at immigration and also education. I have great people, and it is unfortunate that they’re now being tarred with this.”
The review found the Ministry of Business, Immigration and Employment was overly optimistic about delivery, established governance too late and frequently bypassed it, and ignored advice from reviews and staff who questioned whether the project was viable.
It was confirmed that Public Service Commissioner Sir Brian Roche will investigate integrity concerns and appoint an independent investigator to look into the matters raised and recommend any required actions.
Asked if officials were effectively lying to Government ministers, Stanford said: “Well they certainly did provide me with a report that told me everything was rosy and the project was good to go, and that the IQA, the Independent Quality Assurance, said great things.”
“But it was after a period of asking questions and actually asking for that report, it actually, in fact, said the very opposite.”
Stanford said she had asked for an investigation and explanation, and was told that a “junior staffer” and “mix-up” were to blame for the issue. The review found "that one piece of misleading information is much wider than that".
The Minister told Breakfast: “It was diametrically opposed to the truth.”
Stanford said the report laid bare many other issues and that, when pieced together, they occurred over a “long period of time”.
The Minister described the lost millions as “extraordinarily gutting”.
“This cost will be borne by the future users of the immigration system.”
Stanford said she “pushed very hard” to get all the facts on the table and that, with the information now known, “I was the first minister to ask for more information”.
“A whole lot more details, to get more reports regularly, to have an independent IT expert come in over the top and report directly to me, and to have the chief executive of MBIE herself, Carolyn Tremain, play a major part in what was a relatively small IT project.
“Those are the things that we put in place with the information that we had, which, remember, at the time they said ‘if we stop now, $31 million down the drain, and we are very, very close to finishing'.
“Would we have made a different decision? Possibly. But Ministers are only as good as the information they get at the time.”
Asked why the public should trust anything that MBIE was doing, Stanford said that was what the inquiry would find out.
The report landed with her two months after MBIE originally received it; Stanford was asked if this was the behaviour of trustworthy officials, replying: “No, it’s not, you’re right”.
Whether anybody would be sacked from the Ministry would ultimately be a result of the review, the Minister said: “The excuse that I’ve had for not getting this report for two months was that they were wanting to provide a reply to it – of course, there was no reply, so I don’t know what they’ve been doing for the last two months.”
She said most of the people from the project had gone because of the “massive staff turnover”, but she expected to find out “who didn’t send me that report”.
MBIE chief executive Nic Blakeley said it was unacceptable the project failed and said his ministry's own decisions, oversight and governance failings caused the failure and had a significant financial impact.
"We have fallen short of the Government and public's expectations," he said.
"It is integral that the public can have confidence in MBIE and our ability to deliver significant projects like the biometric capability update project. I am committed to addressing the findings of the review to strengthen MBIE’s ability to deliver in future."
The morning's headlines in 90 seconds, including a minister's anger over a failed $30 million Immigration NZ technology project and a new political poll showing a Green Party surge. (Source: 1News)
SHARE ME