Worzel's World - Numbers and Stories

 

There has been some grumbles about an arti-cle by Peter Nicholas in an October edition of the Focus titled Rates arrears: Numbers tell the story.

Numbers always tell stories and sometimes tall stories at that. But when many numbers are missing from the story or numbers are misrep-resented then the story is fictional no matter how factual the numbers. The following numbers tell a different story.

Of revenue collected since the appointment of commissioners only 53% has been spent on ‘essen-tial services’.

Total Kaipara District Council (KDC) public debt (by loan) at Febru-ary 2013 of $79,590,456

is comprised of 15 sep-arate loans at interest rates of between 3.28% and 8.59% pa. My cal-culations on the figures provided indicate that $3,461,000 in interest is being annually siphoned from the district directly into the coffers of foreign owned corporate banks. This is only the interest component. There is also a $79 million debt moun-tain of principle, which the commissioners have committed you to paying. None of this can be used for any services, essential or otherwise, that serve the district.

Around $1.7million is the combined costs to Commissioners and the Mangawhai Ratepay-ers & Residents Asso-

ciation (MRRA) to date of legal action. (This number will obviously grow as Commissioners progress their litigation against residents.) How-ever these costs paid for actual services rendered by New Zealanders, al-beit high priced ones. Most expenses for legal services will end up be-ing spent in this coun-try, lining the pockets of New Zealanders and their businesses. Such

one-off costs are small beer compared with the illegal (and immoral) debt burden placed with-out consent upon the dis-trict. The wealth used to service illegally contract-

ed debt goes we know not where, but definitely a long way from here.

So where did all that capital go? Not just the debt monies but also rev-enue from ratepayers? Can numbers tell us this story too?

The Auditor General’s report estimated the total cost of the Mangawhai Wastewater scheme at

$63 million. It has a to-tal number of connec-tions of only 1,630. This

is currently working to full capacity unless an-other farm for deposit of wastewater is purchased. At present Fonterra refuses to pick up and process milk sourced

from cows grazed on the farm in use. I will now do what both local and national journalists have been either unwilling or unable to do and apply some very basic arithme-tic. The commission has probably done this but has not published the re-sults.

The cost to ratepay-ers for each individual connection as at Decem-ber 2012 was $38,650. Two years have passed

since then and interest costs calculated at an al-most unfeasibly low rate of 4% would add anoth-er $2,520,000 bringing the cost to date per con-nection to a rounded $42,000. Commissioner John Robinson informs us that many of the Man-gawhai rates strikers are not permanent residents. If these non-permanents are connected then it cer-tainly costs him or her a staggering amount to flush their toilet a few times over the holiday pe-riods. Who could imag-ine we would be charged so lavishly for attending

to this most basic of hu-man functions.

Most still remain una-ware of what has actual-ly happened but it is not unfathomable. The num-bers do tell the story. The old adage holds true – follow the money. Those who have made money out of a scheme which became known colloqui-ally as ‘the Kaipara mint’ are: International finan-ciers, Beca and other pro-fessional consultants, the Australian contractors who installed the white elephant, commission-ers, Council staff, and of course, our former be-loved CEO who, over 18 years contributed Jack. Indeed the quarter mil-lion paid to make him go away would have been better spent a decade ago.

Who has lost money? It is here we will find the victims of these crimes. If I have to tell you the answer. You should not have been able to read this far.

It has been asked, Is it fair that some are pay-ing sums to Dargaville while others withhold payment. Of course this is not fair, just as it is not fair that some people fall prey to internet fraud-sters and other con art-ists.

It is still a crime in this nation to support fraudulent activity and

those sending money to Auckland, (yes your rates payments are received and processed in Auck-land) are doing just that. If a foreign despot de-cided to take, by main force, the wealth of our district by landing tank and infantry divisions, I reckon the people round here would put up a spirited fight and would repel the invader in the end. Yet such tac-tics would be unlikely to yield, after military ex-penses, the current $3.5 million clear profit per annum derived from the 14,135 people of the district. We have proved woefully inadequate at defending ourselves against a more subtle enemy – soldiers with suits wielding weapons of words, mercenaries all and backed by artillery of lies and legislation. The coup was staged and over before most knew it had even begun. But it is yet to be a fait accompli.

When the current oc-cupying forces issue a summons to court, I will certainly attend with my brief of evidence but I will not be mounting a defence. I am not guilty of anything that requires defending. I will instead launch a counter attack on traitors, robbers and thieves. „ prof_worzel@hotmail.com