Council garden centre stirs opposition Keep off the gardens

Ruapehu Bulletin, Volume 13, Issue 605, 26 September 1995, Page 4

Council garden centre stirs opposition

Keep off the gardens

• It would appear that

the senior staff and directors of Ruapehu ConstructionLimited need to find out what they are actually allowed to do. One staff of this company believes their company is answerable to no one, as long as they make a profit. One director believes the nursery in Ohakune operated by this company is within the limits of what council permits its LATE (Local Authority Trading Enterprise) to take part in. In actual fact they are limited to the following four areas of corporate intent: civil engineering; vehicle maintenance; nursery propagation; parks and reserves maintenance. A retail nursery is not nursery propagation. So the management of this company needs to explain to the council why they are operating outside their area of corporate intent. There is an equally important moral issue at stake here. Within the area of corporate intent there is nothing stopping Ruapehu Construction opening up a garage in our region and taking business off hard working private enterprise. This may be legally all right but I believe it is morally wrong. The council and its associated LATE are in the business of serving the ratepayers of our district, not competing

with their means of earning a living. There are very few businesses in our district which would have the capital to compete effectively against Ruapehu Construction, which was set up with council funds. The council need to pull their business interest into line and make it serve the people as a good corporate citizen. This does raise the issue however of Ruapehu Construction' s accountability. At present councillors find it very difficult to find out what Ruapehu Construction are actually doing. Our council is presently embarrassed by the retail nursery set up in Ohakune, because councillors had to find out about it from the public. They had no warning it was going to be opened. Our councillors need to have access to the full financial records of Ruapehu Construction' s business activities so they can assess the effectiveness of RCL' s directors. Only then can these directors be accountable to their shareholders, who are the ratepayers of the district. At last Tuesday's meeting in Ohakune some councillors complained about the arrogance of the directors towards council members and their lack or very slow co-operation with councillors' requests for information. This must stop. I believe the only way it will be stopped will

be for the council to dismiss the directors of the company and appoint new "council/ratepayer friendly" directors to keep the company in-line in future. This problem needs to become an issue for our mayoral candidates to address. If they can't resolve this issue as councillors, how can they expect us to believe they can manage major issues such as the health of the region.

David '

Taylor