Time to take it on the chin

Accountability flows from the top down – it’s one of the burdens of leadership.

If the All Blacks lose in the World Cup, the public don’t start gunning for the player whose loose pass gifted the opposition the winning try. It’s the coach in the crosshairs.

If a public project turns into a monumental shambles, then the person calling the shots has to take responsibility.

We learned this week that a late but thorough inspection of the Greenmeadows project has highlighted a raft of fundamental errors. We’re not talking some bad colour matches here. This is a list of major structural issues.

All the windows have to come out, the roof has to come off, and the cladding has to be replaced for a second time. Base plates in the top floor will have to be reinforced.

This audit is not yet complete, so there may be more issues.

Some credit is due to the Nelson City Council for taking matters in hand and commissioning the audit, even though the fixes may send the budget into orbit. If the council needs to pull the building apart and start again in order to ensure the integrity of the structure, then the sooner it cracks into it the better.

Acknowledging there is a problem is one thing. But there have been problems right from the start.

Just as it has conducted a full audit of the building, there also needs to be equally comprehensive probe of the council’s management of this project.

Nelson Mayor Rachel Reese seems intent on laying the blame on the contractors, with talk turning to expert advice and legal redress. But at its heart, this was a council project – from the inception, to awarding the contract, to overseeing it to completion.

Reese is right to state that the council has pulled off some successful projects in the Suter and the school of music. But this has almost no bearing on Greenmeadows, and can’t be used to mitigate the problems there. It’s not as though the council has employed the same ingredients, only to be left scratching its head as to why it went wrong this time.

Oversight is crucial. If the NCC needs a catchup class in the importance of not playing fast and loose with this, then have a chat to Tauranga City Council about the Bella Vista development.

The Tauranga council no doubt has some regret over not putting that project under closer scrutiny since signing it off. It is similarly hiding behind the ‘‘we’re exploring legal action’’ rhetoric.

It’s clear that the NCC has been let down by the contractor.

It’s laudable that Reese has repeatedly said the council is committed to seeing the project through to a satisfactory conclusion, and has acknowledged that there are accountability and responsibility issues. And it has scrambled the troops, with a daily presence on the site.

If the council had taken a wait-and-see approach until this point, then that may be a clue as to where it started to go so badly off piste.

But at some point, the buck has got to stop. The problem won’t go away, but at least if the council owns it and says ‘‘we’ll learn from this’’, that may go some way towards making ratepayers confident that it actually means something.

‘‘Just as it has conducted a full audit of the building, there also needs to be equally comprehensive probe of the council’s management of this project.’’