Delays in works expected in Wellington Water competition trade off

Friday, 14 March 2025

Wellington Water’s new-found drive to stop being “ripped-off” will come with a sour deal for a leaking city – work will take more time.

It was a warning delivered on Friday to a Wellington Water Committee by the utility’s chief executive Pat Dougherty and board chairperson Nick Leggett, the latter who staved off calls for him to be fired in the wake of a contractor overpayment scandal.

Two reports last week pointed to contractor and consultant over-spending, which went unchecked due to a panel arrangement where approved contractors and consultants effectively divided out work among themselves. The utility acknowledged this led to a lack of oversight, double-handled work and extra contract management costs.

But it was now revising its ways and sending some – but not all – work out for tender. While this was expected to drive down costs, Dougherty and Leggett each warned this would mean work taking more time to fix.

It comes a year after Wellington was under the threat of water outages as a large amount of leaks in a perilously old pipe system met a long, dry summer. It turned the region’s councils focus to fixing and replacing – some of which would now take longer.

Wellington mayor Tory Whanau, backed by most of her council, went into Friday’s meeting armed with a letter calling for Leggett to be fired in wake of the scandal. It called for other actions, including an audit of lost money, if Leggett stayed.

But she instead backed a motion by acting chairperson Ros Connelly which did not lay the blame, nor call for a head, but asked for a “high-level analysis of the costs of select large” capital expenditure projects form 2019 to now.

Upper Hutt mayor Wayne Guppy said the high-end analysis was a “fob-off” and short of the detail of past losses that was needed.

“The whole of Wellington wants to know how much it was ripped off,” he said. He was backed by South Wairarapa deputy mayor Melissa Sadler-Futter, who became the only vote against the motion.

Connelly, stepping into the chairperson role for Hutt City mayor Campbell Barry who is stuck in Australia, said a full audit was pointless and the money was handed over legally.

“We are not going to get this money back, that is ridiculous,” she said.

Whanau said she was “quite happy” to go with Connelly’s recommendation.

Outside the meeting, Dougherty said leak fixes were still being dealt with via the existing agreement with Fulton Hogan, so not going to open tender. But it was pipe replacements where the delays could be expected.

He understood small jobs would be delayed by three to four weeks but bigger jobs – which had to be advertised and evaluated – could be delayed two to three months.

The delays would be most pronounced this year, when most jobs would go to tender, but should calm down when Wellington Water scaled back its tendering to just 10%-20% of jobs next financial year, he said.

Wellington Water is owned by Greater Wellington, Wellington City, Hutt City, Upper Hutt, Porirua, and South Wairarapa councils.

The Wellington Water Committee is made up of mayors or deputies from the shareholding councils that own it and mana whenua.