$180M accounting error at ministry
A $180 million accounting blunder went by unnoticed by the Ministry of Transport and the NZTA for over 10 months.
An accounting error made last year within the Ministry of Transport resulted in a $180 million ‘blip’ that was left undiscovered for at least half a year.
A parliamentary select committee hearing yesterday morning heard from ministry chief executive Martin Matthews where he expressed that the incident had been dealt with with the “utmost seriousness”.
The anomaly was made in July of 2010 when a key figure was missed out after a data transfer between spreadsheets, leaving the New Zealand Transport Agency up by $182.6 million.
Not until May of 2011 did the ministry’s finance team pick up on the mistake, where they notified the ministry internally including the NZTA.
It did not, however, lead to any overspending by the ministry according to a ministry spokeswoman.
Mr Matthews said the effect of the accounting error gave the NZTA the impression they had more money in their bank than it did.
“With the NZTA, we commissioned a major review of the cash management process end to end since then, and they have now been significantly strengthened,” said Mr Matthews.
The staff member apparently took the incident so seriously that they resigned from and left the ministry.
Mr Matthews said the ministry has not underestimated the seriousness of the error and will continue to make such matters as transparent as possible.
NBR Staff
Fri, 02 Mar 2012
Fri, 02 Mar 2012
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$180M accounting error at ministry
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