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After five months of hearings, a special House Investigative Committee plans to issue a final report today that recommends further scrutiny of state Auditor Les Kondo by the House, an independent audit of his work and a call for the attorney general to investigate.
An executive summary of the report released Friday includes 11 recommendations regarding Kondo and his office but offers no evidence of criminal activity or serious wrongdoing.
Committee Chairwoman Rep. Della Au Belatti (D, Moiliili-Makiki-Tantalus) said Friday, however, that the committee found “some intentional omissions” in Kondo’s audits.
Following what was scheduled as the committee’s final hearing, she told reporters that there should be “a thorough — a thorough — performance audit.”
The committee was created by a House resolution on the final day of the 2021 legislative session to look into two critical audits by Kondo on management of state lands — one on the Agribusiness Development Corp. and another on the Department of Land and Natural Resources.
Committee member Rep. Dale Kobayashi (D, Manoa-Punahou-Moiliili) again Friday questioned the committee’s focus on Kondo and whether the resolution even authorized the committee to examine the actions of Kondo and his office.
Kobayashi, the only auditor on the committee, and Rep. Val Okimoto (R, Mililani-Mililani Mauka-Waipio Acres) voted against approving the committee’s final report, which is scheduled to be posted on the committee’s website at noon today.
Kobayashi said the committee had “really gone down the wrong road … and it’s really disappointing that this is the end result of what we’ve done here.”
He read a 2019 peer review of Kondo’s audit on the city’s troubled rail project and said, “They got the best passing grade on their work.”
Kobayashi also criticized the committee for not letting Kondo respond to criticisms in the report and said allegations are “really innuendo, just casting a negative light on the auditor. … I also don’t see any justice in us issuing criticisms of any agency or anybody without giving them the chance to address the charges being made.”
He said Kondo might have offered “easy answers” for concerns cited in the report that “never got addressed.”
In all, the committee conducted 19 hearings since September, subpoenaed 22 witnesses to testify under oath and reviewed “thousands and thousands” of pages of subpoenaed documents, according to Belatti.
Four bills — HB 2417, 2418, 2419 and 2420 — also have been introduced in the House this session to shore up the performance of the Agribusiness Development Corp. and DLNR regarding concerns in Kondo’s audits.
The committee’s report made 14 recommendations for DLNR and 27 for the Agribusiness Development Corp.
Asked whether House leadership has concluded its scrutiny of him, Kondo told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser on Friday, “I hope so, but I’m not going to hold my breath. They’re calling for further oversight, further investigation and a further audit. … It doesn’t seem that the committee is satisfied after their second attempt to dredge the ocean and that net coming up empty. It seems it’s not done. But I just don’t know.”
He called the committee’s executive summary conclusion that he refused to cooperate “not only untrue, but absurd.” Kondo testified before the committee three times for nearly eight hours total.
“I have always been prepared to testify again, especially after the committee announced that I was under investigation,” Kondo said. ”The reason we are so concerned about this investigation — really, why everyone should be concerned and, frankly, should be upset — is because this is a gross abuse of power. It is about the ethics and integrity of state government. People should be worried about this.”
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