The Minister of Social Development has launched an internal review after she missed several red flags around multimillion dollar spending on private rentals for the homeless.
The Auditor-General this week criticised the spending, which saw more than $37 million paid to landlords and property managers, despite having no checks or quality controls on the rental properties.
The Ministry for Social Development only told Carmel Sepuloni it was using private rentals for emergency housing in July 2020 - after the scheme had stopped.
Emails revealed to Checkpoint show she was contacted about the issue in May 2020. Sepuloni said the multiple emails which were sent to her office in May last year should have raised flags, but were passed straight to the Ministry.
She says media reports at the time should also have prompted further investigation and there will be an internal review into how things were missed.
MSD's chief executive says the minister should have had oversight on the issue and it is also reviewing its processes.
"I don't recall that email, so we certainly would be interested in looking at it," she told Checkpoint on Wednesday.
Checkpoint sent those emails to the Minister's office. It has now confirmed the email in question had been sent and forwarded to the Minister's office several times.
"I'll be working with my team to review our internal processes," Sepuloni said in a statement to Checkpoint on Friday.
"MSD made the decision to stop using private rentals for emergency accommodation in early May 2020. They informed landlords the last day they would fund rentals was 30 June 2020.
"On 13 May 2020, Silverfern Properties wrote to the PM and other Ministers asking for MSD to reconsider this decision.
"This was passed onto my office to look into by the PM's office and the office of Minister Woods."
The email, revealed to Checkpoint through an OIA request, is several pages long and shows Silverfern Property operated as an Airbnb business.
Sepuloni said her office forwarded the email to MSD to respond to, as it was considered an operational issue. MSD responded to Silverfern properties directly on 10 June 2020.
She said her office receives a lot of correspondence, and the response process generally works well.
"But in this case it could have been flagged with me due to the nature of the content.
"I received an official brief from MSD on 19 August 2020. However, I acknowledge there was media reporting in 2019. This should have prompted my office to look further into MSD's use of private rentals.
"I fully accept the findings of the Auditor General's report as does MSD. I have spoken to MSD's chief executive on this matter. She agrees that decisions such as this need Ministerial oversight and I should have received an official brief earlier."
The Ministry for Social Development has said it will also be reviewing its internal processes in light of the Auditor-General's report.
