John MacDonald: Council cathedral payment needs to be stopped

Canterbury Mornings with John MacDonald

If you ever needed proof that local councils are great at throwing other people's money around, here it is.

Because, even though the reinstatement work on the Anglican cathedral in Cathedral Square could come to a standstill in just a matter of weeks because of money problems, the Christchurch City Council is handing over $7 million. Which beggars belief, doesn’t it?

This is the second payment to make up the $10 million the council pledged back in 2017. The council paid $3 million last December and this $7 million makes up the balance.

Apparently, as it’s being reported today, this $7 million was on the proviso of certain conditions being met. We don’t know what they are. But, even if they have been met, these are provisos that were agreed on seven years ago, at a time when the project wasn’t at such risk of falling over. Like it is now. It could be just weeks away from happening.

That’s why I’m finding the council’s position that it’s going to press-on and hand over the $7 million as “a sign of good faith”, hard to accept. For a couple of reasons.

First: the council is borrowing to pay the money to the cathedral project and is levying ratepayers to repay the loan. So, as soon as the money goes to the church, we’re paying interest.

The second reason: is I feel as if the reinstatement project is holding the city to ransom over the money problems they’re dealing with.

Somewhere around $100 million has been spent so far. But the job is bigger than first thought and, it was revealed in April, the project needed to find an extra $114 million - taking the overall cost to $248 million.

To the church’s credit, in June it agreed to scale-back on some of the work which reduced the funding gap from $114 million to between $75 million and $85 million.

But here’s why I feel we’re being held to ransom. Back in April, the project people said that, if the first $30 million of that $114 million couldn’t be found by September - next month - then work would stop completely and the cathedral would be mothballed indefinitely.

So the Council, in its wisdom, thinks that by handing over the $7 million now, it will go some way towards them getting the $30 million they need by next month to keep going.

Which - if the council was correct - would mean that, in the four months since the money crisis was revealed in April, the project has managed to raise $23 million.

I would be astounded if they’ve managed to do that. Absolutely astounded.

What’s more, the church and the reinstatement people are refusing to say whether or not they have actually managed to find extra money from somewhere and, if they have, how much,

Even council staff acknowledge the risk. In a report for concillors they say: "There is a risk that the granted funds will not allow for the completion of the cathedral reinstatement project.”

They say deferring the payment - which is what they should do - would give the council more certainty. But they also say that, if the council doesn’t hand over the money, it could lead to a loss of momentum and the work stopping.

The Government has already put $25 million into the cathedral, and it’s being asked to provide more taxpayer money.

That’s yet to be considered by Cabinet but Winston Peters has already said that he’d support the Government giving more money to prevent the reinstatement being mothballed.

But remember, he’s not the Finance Minister - and we know how Finance Minister Nicola Willis doesn’t like cost blow-outs.

And it’s not as if Winston Peters is negotiating a coalition agreement where he could make more Cathedral funding one of his non-negotiables. So don’t bet the house on that one happening.

Another reason why I feel like the cathedral people are holding us to ransom over this, is the way in which they’ve been so secretive about the finances right up until the last minute.

And it's not just me saying they’ve been all closed shop. I remember city councillors saying at various points that they had expected - or they would like - a bit more transparency on the finances.

But despite all that, they’re giving over $7 million even though they’ve got no idea whether the project will continue beyond next month or not.

And I think that’s nuts.

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