Finance Minister Bill English is refusing to release a breakdown of estimated spending on aspects of the Mighty River Power share float but says the Government is being upfront about the cost .
The Green Party has put a series of written parliamentary questions to Mr English on forecast expenditure, including what might be spent on third parties such as stockbrokers.
Mr English says it is not in the public interest to provide forecasts for individual items within the share offer, and Treasury is releasing information on actual costs on a quarterly basis.
Figures released by the Crown Ownership Monitoring Unit last Friday put the costs for preparing the Government share offers so far at $24.3 million. Of this $3 million has been spent by Treasury on advertising and communications.
He said all costs have to be transparent and will be between 1% and 2% of the cost of the float.
Mr English says most of the major costs involve the legal compliance with the regulations required when offering an investment product to the public.
