An East Coast paua hatchery was forced to wait five years for a grant from the Ministry of Agriculture’s Sustainable Farming Fund.
The SFF approved the $230,500 grant in 2002 but the money wasn’t paid over until November last year.
National’s agriculture spokesman David Carter attributes the delay to “bureaucratic ineptness”.
The grant was for the development of a commercially viable paua production system. The project was to study yellow-foot and virgin paua so seed stock production methods could be developed; to develop a selective breeding system across these two species and common paua to provide superior stock; and to test and develop a recirculating sea water system.
The applicant, Te Runanga o Turanganui a Kiwa, wrote to MAF, MAF’s director general, the Minsiter of Maori Affairs and Agriculture Minister Jim Anderton seeking answers.
Carter has obtained an internal memo which states:
” ‘all failings – and there has [sic]been many of them – were at MAF’s end’ and that it was ‘extremely embarrassing’ for MAF.”
The Minister should also be embarrassed but as Phillipa Stevenson points out at Dig ‘n’ Stir he avoided the issue when Carter questioned him in parliament this week.
Five years of ineptness deserves more than obfuscation. Does nobody in government know how to say, “sorry we stuffed up”?
Hat tip: Dig ‘n’ Stir
Homepaddock 