New Zealand’s Institute of IT Professionals collapses New Zealand’s Institute of IT Professionals has discovered it is insolvent and advised members it has no alternative but to enter liquidation. The Institute (ITP) wrote to members on Thursday and posted a document titled “Important Update on ITP’s Future” that reveals it has “reached a point where the organization cannot …
So the CEO stepped down in August commenting the organisation was, "living beyond it's means" and then two months later they realise they are completely insolvent? What exactly was the CEO doing and who was auditing the accounts? How can they not be aware of their financial position? Definitely something screwy going on here.
I think you are misunderstanding what happened. They, including the CEO, finally got serious about digging into reality, instead of hiding from the truth, or hiding the truth, and reality has taken its course.
Others, around the world—not naming names—will no doubt also discover that reality always wins in the end.
I'm pretty certain we are already in Act 2. Act 1 was more Comedy, and less overt Satire. But this Act is really dipping into the extreme Satire/Black Comedy angle. It's almost like the writers are thinking just how far can we go before the Audience walks away...
But I guess they have a captive audience at the moment. I'm certainly ready for it to end though, but I hear they have at least 2 more years already planned...
"the final denouement in Act 3."
Isn't it normally Act V where, after some swordy bits, just about the whole cast are strewn about the stage, dead or dying ?
Or it that just Hamlet ?
I suspect our contemporary denouement is the fabric of glamourie, currently being portrayed as reality, rapidly becoming unstitched as are the feeble intellects behind the tawdry deceit.
Most likely: the new CEO discovered discrepencies, refused to bow to pressure to shut up and stop digging, then realised that if they hung around they'd be made the scapegoat whilst the real villains skipped happily off to the bank, using defemation litigation to gag anyone pointing out the money trail
It's happened multiple times before in NZ
The status might also depend on whether the members were individually responsible for the debts.
In the UK a registered charity has to file annual financial reports to the Charity Commission*. A not for profit business is different but might be run for the profit of those who provide it with its services or by is directors; although it cannot make a profit it can make a surplus which, apparently, is something quite different. (I used to belong to a user group which was run rather well be a small company. The vendor of the product of which we were users bought another corporation and wanted the two user groups to merge and be run by whoever ran the other one and who were hopeless. The group fell apart soon afterwards.)
* The trustees are personally liable. I'm a trustee of a local charity. Fortunately it's in financially sound but because our previous treasurer had health problems its reporting has lagged. We're now being chased for an outstanding report which we can't send until it's been approved at the next AGM which is due to be held this month.
Exactly - this is an example of the same incompetence/malfeasance that happened in the U.S. 25 years ago…Arthur Anderson remember that accounting firm? When AA was asked how they let pass Enron’s accounting misdeeds - their response, “we audited what we were presented”. Yeah, that is problem with corporate or even individual accounting, it is completely dependent on the records provided to “pass”. In this case, the org.’s Finance head was not Andy Fastow but just incompetent and the result was the same - bankruptcy. Takeaway; don’t expect an “audit” will save an org. from malfeasance or incompetence.
The whole thing is wonderfully incompetent. As an incorporated society, it is required to make annual filings. The 2021 accounts were filed in July 2023, long after the deadline; an auditor was named, but no auditor's report was included.
After that, no accounts were filed until July 2025, when a "2024 AGM Financial Report" was filed. This is not a financial report, but a set of 5 Powerpoint slides - two show a breakdown of revenue, one lists total expenses and says which ones had increased or decreased since 2023, and one lists totals for assets, liabilities and equity at 31 December 2024, but with no breakdown and no comparative figures for 2023.
But slide 4 is absolutely wonderful: it tells the members that a new auditor has been appointed and is looking at the accounts for 2022, 2023 and 2024; and for 2025 it says that "we are close to being able to count actual member numbers!" (Exclamation point in the original.)
Meanwhile, the Registrar of Incorporated Societies had dissolved the society in November 2024, being "satisfied that [the Society] are no longer carrying on their operations". Apparently, somebody noticed (my guess would be that the bank closed their account since they no longer existed) and in January 2025 they were un-dissolved again.
So now they will finally be liquidated, and the world will lose a great accounting comedy.
"What, carpets and lime are free in NZ?"
And a number of reasonably convenient more or less active volcanoes. Works for rings of power so a leasing company printers and representative should not pose much of a problem.
Some pretty large and doubtless hungry sharks lurking off mostly deserted beaches (at least those sharks that have avoided being the fush in fish and chips.)
Two hundreds years ago it would have much easier – just invite the locals to a nosh up.
As a (very) long time expatriot I suspect the whole nation has been trading insolvently for decades. As above so below.
I'm not sure to what extent professional bodies rely on only membership fees to operate, afaik most of any size probably supplement their income with commercial activities (publishing, running conferences, etc). If the numbers on either side drop, the organization can end up in trouble, and if things don't improve, or cannot be improved in time ...
The sidelines detailed in the article (certifying external qualifications etc) are a VERY lucrative income source for those doing the certifying. What's being charged bears very little relationship to the amount of work involved and is determined by "what the market will bear"
When an organisation with a monopoly takes this mindset it never ends well (government or private)
New Zealand institutions have a nasty tendency to deny problems and go into full messenger-shooting mode when reality intrudes into their cosy little bubbles
It's very much an old boys' club and if you're not part of the inner circles there will be active efforts to take you down. This isn't unusual in ex-colonies and the corruption is merely better hidden than other places
The public has bought into this too. Whilst the PERCEPTION of transparency/lack of corruption is high, the REALITY is that 1/3 of kiwis admitted to having to make under-the-counter payments to grease wheels in ternms of getting things done in local and national government issues. Anyone pointing this out becomes public enemy #1, as have the people who pointed out that in the last 25 years ALL lowland rivers (and most highland ones) have gone from being potable water sources to unfit for swimming
How many western democracies have you seen where senior police can describe protest groups as "subversives" on national TV news channels without any backlash or interest from journalists? (This isn't recent. They've been doing it since at least the 1970s)
Kiwiland has a quite sordid history of "staid" organisations being reamed out from the inside by fraudsters who usually get away nearly scot-free and move onto their next victims without any eyebrows being raised, usually because such individuals are "highly respected members of the community". It also has a sordid history of those individuals using defamation litigation to gag whistleblowers and journalists - to the point that news stories have been killed between the 6 and 10pm news by such threats.
I'm a member of a professional association and I get a copy of its accounts every year (on paper, not digital). Detailed figures with an explanation of its fiscal health.
Should they have been allowed to do the stuff that they did, if they didn't even bother to sort out their own finances? What sort of oversight was there?
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