By Cam Lucadou-Wells
Greater Dandenong chief executive John Bennie has defended his actions in managing his and the council’s conflict of interest in the I Cook Foods shutdown.
Mr Bennie told a Parliamentary inquiry on 24 June that he couldn’t sign the closure order due the council’s part-ownership and his directorship of I Cook’s rival Community Chef.
On the evening of 21 February 2019, he was informed by council staff that the Acting Chief Health Officer requested the council to serve a closure notice on I Cook Foods by the following morning.
Under the Food Act, Mr Bennie couldn’t delegate the function to other council managers, he said. Even if legally permissible, the criticism would be that he was delegating to somebody “answerable and accountable to me”.
The Chief Health Officer, Brett Sutton, instead signed the order, and council staff served the order early the next morning.
I Cook Foods director Ian Cook’s assertion that the council had an agenda to target and close down I Cook Foods was “completely untrue”, Mr Bennie said.
“There is and was no premeditated attempt to regulate I Cook Foods out of business and somehow give Community Chef a commercial advantage.
“Council’s investigation of I Cook Foods commenced after notification from the Department of Health and Human Services that an elderly woman had died with evidence suggesting a possible link to I Cook Foods.”
The council’s investigation was conducted “professionally” and “ethically”.
“Council and its staff have acted with integrity throughout.
“The suggestion that council’s involvement in Community Chef created a conflict of interest for all council staff and tainted what they did is ill-founded.
“Those performing regulatory functions on Council’s staff including (the environmental health inspectors) had no role to play in Council’s interface with Community Chef.”
He told the inquiry that a council-commissioned audit found that there were “fundamentally no issues for us to be concerned about”.
Though I Cook Foods had not been prosecuted for food-safety breaches, there was a history of “complaints” including the detection of listeria between 2016-18, Mr Bennie said.
In each instance, the company – under the watch of environmental health inspector and whistleblower Kim Rogerson – was directed to take “corrective action”.
He tabled an Ombudsman’s report that he said found “no substance” to claims that Ms Rogerson was intimidated by the council to sign an altered version of her report on I Cook Foods and allegations about Mr Bennie’s conflict of interest.
The changes made to Ms Rogerson’s report were a “natural progression from first draft to final format”, the Ombudsman’s report stated.
“I have been unable to identify evidence to suggest that the expansion of your statement was as a result of council officers falsifying your statement.”
I Cook Foods alleges that it was wrongfully shut down on a number of bases, including alleged fabricated claims of an unsafe, unclean premises by Greater Dandenong environmental health inspectors.
The inquiry is scheduled to report back on the matter by the end of July.
