New Zealand Minister on Rejection of Aid Proposals: 'Paperwork Was Not Up to Scratch'

Many grant applications for a New Zealand development fund were discarded due to poor quality, according to Foreign Minister Murray McCully.

Of the 104 applications to gain a portion of the new Sustainable Development Fund, 60 were rejected.

“Many of the applications were of very poor quality, the paperwork was not up to scratch in many cases and that led to some delays in the processing of the applications… I am satisfied that officials were simply being professional with taxpayers’ money,” the minister said Dec. 16.

Insufficient information was the common problem among the applications, NZPA reports.