National’s $38 million budget blunder | The Jackal

16 Jun 2017

National’s $38 million budget blunder

If you were to believe right wing pundits like David Farrar and Cameron Slater you would think that the National party was a studious financial manager that never got anything wrong. Of course they’re full of shit and National couldn’t organise a piss-up in a brewery.

Today, Stuff reported:

'This can never happen again': Health minister furious at $38m Budget blunder

Health Minister Jonathan Coleman has lambasted his officials and Director General of Health Chai Chuah, over a major budget blunder that saw 14 DHBs given too much money and six shortchanged in the Government budget.

Coleman should be furious at himself for being so damn incompetent. After all it was him who signed off on the incorrect payments to the DHBs. As the Minister in charge it’s ultimately up to him to ensure the correct calculations were made before giving the go ahead.

The fact that Coleman didn’t do his job properly and is now trying to lay blame solely on the Ministry he’s in charge of is simply pathetic!

Cash-strapped District Health Boards are being made to hand back some of their funding, after a Ministry of Health blunder saw some given too much money in the Budget.

A total of 14 DHBs were over funded, and would have to relinquish some of their funding allocations to balance out six DHBs who were not given enough money according to a complex formula.

DHBs were awarded $439m in the budget - that total figure would not change, but up to $38m of those funds was doled out incorrectly.

It’s been nearly a month since the 2017 budget, so you’ve also got to wonder why it’s taken so long to find and own up to the $38 million dollar mistake?

But if that confusion wasn’t bad enough, Coleman seems to have his wires crossed concerning what the DHBs have been told.

It was still unclear how DHBs would be individually affected, but Waikato DHB spokesperson Lydia Aydon said the health board was yet to be told whether it would lose or gain funding due to the ministry's blunder. She expected the board to be informed by Tuesday.



"DHBs were told they were getting a certain amount and they're having to make adjustments. And of course, people need to have total confidence in not only the figures, but the integrity of the population based funding formula," Coleman said.

So according to Jonathan bloody Coleman the DHBs have been informed about the funding change already, while the DHBs are expecting to learn of the exact amounts in the claw-back on Tuesday.

Could this Minister and the National party be anymore inept? After the Nova pay debacle, the astronomical increase in government debt and last years paid parental leave opposition based on incorrect calculations just to mention a few National party fuck ups, voters really shouldn’t have any confidence in their financial ability at all.

Perhaps the current government is trying to unseat Piggy Muldoon and his think big projects or Douglas and his Rogernomics as the worst financial blunderers this country has ever seen.