Dunedin councillor given deadline to retract secret asset sale claims

A Dunedin city councillor has until 5pm on Wednesday to retract his claims that a council-controlled asset is secretly being put up for sale.

In multiple Facebook posts, Benedict Ong alleged plans to sell City Forests had been hidden from the public.

In a letter to Ong - which RNZ has seen - council chief executive Richard Briggs said the claim was false.

"There is no proposal before council, no resolution, no instruction to staff and no work under way to sell City Forests Limited or any part of it. Your statement that 'intended sale plans' have been 'in the works behind the scenes and withheld from our public community' is untrue.

"The facts are the opposite of what you have told people. City Forests' staff numbers are up by one year on year. There have been no redundancies and none are planned. Contractor numbers move with the silviculture programme, as they always have, and there has been no material change. You have published your claim to a public audience that includes City Forests staff, whose "jobs and livelihoods" you say are at risk. That is a serious thing to say to people about their jobs when it is not true."

He said unless Ong removed the social media posts, issued a correction, and informed him he had done so, he would lodge a Code of Conduct complaint.

But Ong told RNZ he stood by his posts and would not be removing them.

In his letter, Briggs warned Ong he could also face legal action from individuals named or identified in his posts under the Defamation Act 1992 and the Harmful Digital Communications Act 2015.

The council had already found Ong in breach of its code three times, most recently on 29 October.