Photo: VNP/Louis Collins
A Labour Party MP who accused the Health Commissioner Lester Levy of "cooking the books" during a Select Committee says she makes "no apology" for holding the government to account.
During a tense scrutiny hearing yesterday, Labour's health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall and Professor Levy clashed over Health New Zealand's financial reporting, which had been criticised by the Auditor-General.
Documents released this week show that after the Auditor-General's intervention, HNZ moved millions of dollars of redundancy payments from 2023-24 to the current financial year, pushing the forecast deficit 2024-25 to more than $1 billion.
It also changed how much it was allowing for Holidays Act paybacks in this financial year.
Verrall, who was health minister in the previous government, went on to ask Levy about his track-record of producing surpluses at district health boards, which "became deficits" after he left.
She put it to him that he had a "reputation for cooking the books", before being drowned out by calls for a point of order.
Levy angrily rejected the allegations, promising to provide evidence to refute them - and said he expected an apology.
In response to RNZ's query today, Ayesha Verrall says Dr Levy had not yet provided that evidence.
"My job as a parliamentarian is to hold the government and their decisions to account and I make no apology for that," she said.
Levy responds
A spokesperson for Levy said he intended to provide that information when he had the time.
"Professor Levy has a number of prior commitments this week but he is committed to providing the commentary and numbers and will do so next week."
In a written statement, Levy said comments that Health New Zealand was using its annual report to artificially increase its deficit were "totally incorrect".
As Health NZ told the hearing yesterday, there were two items in Health NZ's draft, unaudited accounts that it "adjusted" based on the Auditor-General's advice.
"This is normal practice when finalising the audited annual accounts where differences in perspective are discussed and resolved.
"This was in the context of a large complex service now under extreme financial pressure as a result of very significant month-on-month operating deficits being recorded in the last four months of the 2023/24 financial year ending in June.
"Whether the costs of redundancies are included in last year's accounts or this year's, is a technical accounting matter in the end. This liability will be booked either way."
The accuracy of the Holiday Pay remediations would only be known once all those payments were made, he said.
"I am focused on ensuring these remediation payments are made as fast as possible as there has been little progress on this in prior years.
"At the same time we are looking to minimise the very significant consultancy costs that have been incurred."
If Audit NZ was correct and there was money left over, that would be returned to the government.
"But if we are correct and there is insufficient provision to meet the payments this will be a financial problem for Health NZ as operating budget will be required to meet those payments.
"We are moving at pace to get Health NZ back to Budget, and while we do that work we are focused on strengthening front-line clinical services, and taking action to reduce wait times."
The accounts had now been audited and signed off by the Auditor-General.
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