Now that the court has entered convictions in the criminal trial of the Serious Fraud Office charges against Michael Swann and Kerry Harford, I am in a somewhat better position to make some comments about this sorry affair.
I am mindful, though, that we still have civil proceedings before the courts to try to recover what we can of the money that was stolen from the board.
This has been a terribly traumatic time for many people, not the least being those who counted Michael Swann as a colleague and, for many, also a friend.
This is particularly so for those who worked most closely with him and will have built up relationships over many years.
It has engendered all sorts of emotions and still does.
There has been incredulity at the size of the theft, anger at the abuse of trust and the betrayal that represents, dismay at the lost opportunities for health, a desire for retribution, and a need to understand how something like this can even happen.
Those of us closest to the events have been through all those emotions.
I remain angry at the callous contempt with which Swann and Harford have treated the people of Otago and you, our staff.
This was not an opportunistic, spur-of-the-moment crime.
It was a carefully constructed and deliberately concealed scheme to provide a lifestyle for them that can only astound the rest of us.
It naturally has begged questions, the most important of which have been: How could it happen? and Can we prevent it from happening again?
These are my personal thoughts and I recognise that there will be some who will feel differently.
The only person responsible for a crime is the criminal.
I have heard, over the past two years, of all the people at fault.
They have included myself, former chairman Ross Black, the current CEO, the former CEOs, the previous board, the finance staff, the IT staff, you collectively for not (to use the minister's phrase) "noticing the Lamborghini amongst the Corollas", his past employers, the internal auditors, the external auditors, and probably some others I have forgotten.
If I had $1000 for everyone in Otago who has told me, since his arrest, that they believed Swann was a crook, we would have already recovered most of the missing millions.
Bottom line - the person at fault is the person who planned to steal, and that was Swann.
I don't need to go into the details of the case.
If you are interested you will have been reading it in the paper, and if you are not then you probably aren't reading this, either.
What I think staff do want to understand is how it took so long for him to be caught and what the implications are for the future.
Michael Swann's significant advantage was that he was in charge of the department he was stealing from, it was an area that few had the technical expertise to fully understand, and he never tried to hide his wealth.
I didn't know Swann outside the work environment and apparently was one of the few people in Otago who didn't know he was wealthy.
But those who knew him did know that he was wealthy.
Most to whom I have since spoken believed that he was independently wealthy.
Apparently, Michael himself would say that he didn't work for money, as he didn't need it, but that he worked because he was into computers and it was the biggest computer game in town.
He apparently claimed to be involved in external business ventures with prominent businesspeople, and many had been told he had made significant money from the sale of a software program.
In the CEO's case this was the situation that applied when he came to the board.
There was no apparent change in Swann's circumstances that might have prompted a concern or led him to ask how his circumstances had changed.
It is easy for some to say now that it was apparent he was living beyond his lawful means.
It puzzles me that, if this was that apparent, it took five years during my chairmanship before a single person came to me with concerns.
At that point, I immediately spoke to the CEO and an investigation was commenced.
As a result, following particularly good work by our Chief Financial Officer, Swann was dismissed.
The best form of concealment is to apparently have nothing to hide, and Swann did that particularly well.
One of Brian Rousseau's early actions after his arrival here was to get an independent review done of our IT strategy.
The reviewers' list does not include the "contracts" because, if they existed at the time, Swann made sure they were not available to review.
People have asked what the auditors were doing.
The external auditors gave evidence at the trial that they need to get lucky to find fraud and that, internationally, about 5% of fraud is discovered through audit.
Nevertheless, questions have been raised for me by comments in the Otago Daily Times in recent days as to whether any of the auditors involved during a previous administration held or should have held concerns.
That is a matter I will be making further inquiries about.
I can say that neither I nor the three boards I have chaired were ever advised of any concerns by any auditors.
What were the IT staff doing? Well, they would not have even been aware of the "contracts".
Indeed, the evidence at the trial casts considerable doubt as to when the "contracts" that do now exist were even created.
What were the finance staff doing paying out on these "contracts"? Well, the evidence given was that they had apparently kosher invoices, and when anyone did inquire as to what they were for they received an explanation that appeared satisfactory even if, as we now know, it was fabricated.
I could go on.
It is a matter of considerable distress to me that I, my board and the CEO had no knowledge of the warning that was provided to a previous chair.
If we had, it might have made a difference.
I don't think it has been helpful to have been unable to release previously what is now being reported in the paper.
I sought to do so in 2006 but was prevented by the SFO because it was their document (there was no copy in the board's records) and it was potentially evidence.
I have to accept the explanation since given that the previous chair and the then-acting CEO had no evidence of wrongdoing at the time to do anything further.
However, it is undeniably the case that the absence of any communication of the matter to the new CEO, chair and board was unfortunate in the extreme.
So what has happened since?The board has developed a complete fraud strategy.
That has included, among other things, the development of a centralised contract database, a computer-based link between payments and authorisation levels, a structured programme of forensic audit, and the development of an 0800 fraud hotline to allow staff who have suspicions of fraud to convey those to an independent body.
Most fraud is detected because someone notices something that doesn't feel quite right.
But there is a big step between "doesn't feel quite right" and alleging dishonesty, and most people find it difficult to make that step.
By being able to put those concerns in someone else's independent hands, we will hopefully increase the likelihood that people will feel the confidence to report their concerns.
Finally, we remain optimistic that we will recover a portion of the money.
Hopefully that will occur through an order for reparation by the sentencing judge.
If that does not occur then we have the option to continue with the civil action for recovery that we have already commenced.
It is my fervent hope that the sentencing judge will save us that trouble.
The legal work to date has taken not just financial resource but a huge amount of staff time.
That is time that I would prefer to see dedicated to running our health system.
Inevitably, I have fielded the staple journalist's question of "What have you done to ensure this can never happen again?".
It would be a foolish person who said there will never be another fraud.
It is the nature of criminality that it looks for and exploits loopholes, and all systems depend to a large degree on the honesty of human beings.
No matter how many systems we put in place, our best defence against fraud is you.
If you see something that doesn't feel right then tell someone.
You might be right, you might be mistaken - but that will always be a better mistake than keeping quiet in case you are wrong.
Talk to your manager, or talk to me, as eventually happened in this case.
If you don't want to be identified then use the fraud hotline.
Systems only make life more complicated for the dishonest.
It is honest people being prepared to stand up that catches them.
