Wilce resigned after allegations that his resume owed more to Walter Mitty - or former IBM executive Jeffrey Papows - than to the scientist's substantive achievements.
Wilce's departure followed suggestions on the NZ 60 Minutes program that he had been excessively creative with his resume. That document reportedly featured claims that he was an ex-Marine combat veteran and an Olympic bobsledder who raced against Jamaica's Cool Runnings team.
60 Minutes reported that there was no record of Wilce serving in Britain's Royal Marines or having combat experience and that no-one on the 1988 British bobsleigh team had heard of him. Previous employers and colleagues reportedly told the program that Wilce had claimed he designed guidance systems for Britain's Polaris missiles.
The program shrilled that -
Mr Wilce’s role comes with the highest levels of security clearance, but it is a job he was given on the basis of a string of lies, many of which on his CV.The ABC reports that he headed 80 staff at the Defence Technology Agency for five years, a security-sensitive (and thus vetted?) position occupied despite suggestions that he had earlier been asked to leave a job at Royal NZ Yacht Club after only a few months when members began to suspect something was amiss. Wilce had reportedly boasted that he had played Test rugby for Wales against the All Blacks, a claim that was alas false.
He solely represents New Zealand on a strategic international defence committee and reports directly to the Chief of Defence.
60 Minutes has obtained statements from many willing to testify to Mr Wilce’s lies and to his incompetence.
"Very quickly a very sorry tale emerged and I found this fellow was telling me massive porkies", said business consultant Steve Saunders, who interviewed Mr Wilce for a CEO role.
"Stephen Wilce was blatantly lying about his capabilities. Blatantly", says Iain MacKenzie, an engineer and former DTA scientist who reported to Mr Wilce.
"He delivered promise after promise, none of which we saw a result for", says Chris Jarvis, who co-owned CEMA Pty Ltd, a company Mr Wilce had previously been CEO of.
With testimonies like these it's quite a promotion then to go from running a small housing company to becoming the Director of New Zealand's DTA, and our Chief Defence Scientist.
So serious are the allegations made to 60 Minutes that they went undercover to unmask Stephen Paul Wilce.
The NZ Prime Minister has ordered the States Services Commission (the public service watchdog) to investigate the failure: "The investigation will cover the vetting processes used by the Security Intelligence Service (SIS) regarding the granting of a security clearance to Mr Wilce in 2005, and the adequacy of those processes". The NZ Defence Force has launched two separate inquiries, looking at how Wilce was appointed, how he performed and to what information he had access.
Red faces among the spooks come eight years after John Davy, the inaugural head of the Maori Television Service, was sentenced to eight months imprisonment for getting creative with his CV.
Davy's appointment reflected supposed strong financial and management skills, important as he had no television experience and knew little of Maori culture. He had claimed authorship of two books, an MBA from the Ashland School of Business at Denver State University, an accounting certificate and experience as a member of the British Columbia Securities Commission.
Someone appears to have been asleep during verification of those credentials. Davy was unknown to the BC Securities Commission. The 'University' was revealed to be an online diploma mill. Davy - apparently undaunted - claimed that he had been 'undercover', with his academic and financial history being wiped as part of a witness protection program. The reality was more prosaic: he had been twice declared bankrupt and had worked as an accountant in Whistler, rather than as a regulator.
The NZ Herald reports that -
Earlier this year, another senior public servant, Immigration Service head Mary Anne Thompson, was fined $10,000 and ordered to do 100 hours of community work for falsely claiming to hold a doctorate from the London School of Economics.Claims by the imaginative Mr Papows were 'excused' in The Register -
But she had already resigned from Immigration after helping members of her family to gain residency. Her behaviour underlines the need to treat falsified CVs seriously no matter how mundane or how senior the job.
... Certainly, if some of Mr Wilce's more outrageous claims were in his CV, he should have been quickly found out. Having said that, Thompson's bogus doctorate passed muster in the Departments of Maori Affairs and the Prime Minister before she went to Immigration.
So he's not an orphan, his parents are alive and well. He wasn't a Marine Corps captain, he was a lieutenant. He didn't save a buddy by throwing a live grenade out of a trench. He didn't burst an eardrum when ejecting from a Phantom F4, which didn't crash, not killing his co-pilot. He's not a tae kwon do black belt, and he doesn't have a PhD from Pepperdine University.As a postscript, the 2010 NZ Defence media release regarding the report on the Wilce incident [PDF] commented rather generously that -
the Court of Inquiry carried out a thorough investigation and concluded that Mr Wilce has represented his work history, military career, achievements, academic qualifications and activities in other fields in a way that has been neither honest nor complete.A report by the NZ State Services Commission on the NZ Security Intelligence Service's handling of vetting [PDF] was more acerbic, commenting that
“Not only have his actions damaged his reputation, they damaged the morale of those he led at the Defence Technology Agency, and they have damaged the reputation of the New Zealand Defence Force,” says Lt Gen Mateparae.
However, in respect of his recruitment, it appears Mr Wilce’s failings were almost entirely those of omission. Although the Court of Inquiry finds that some of his embellishments were misleading, there is no evidence that he lied about his qualifications.
“The bulk of his untruths arose during the period he was already employed by us. While telling lies in one’s day-to-day life is reprehensible, further elements are required before it becomes a crime. However, in order to promote public confidence in public administration and the administration of justice, I have made a copy of the report available to the Police so that they can reach an independent assessment as to whether any charges are warranted.”
- the Security Intelligence Service did not check with counterpart overseas agencies to see what they knew about Wilce, contrary to standard practice where an applicant for a security clearance had worked overseas
- did not follow up on Wilce's failure to disclose convictions once a police check revealed that he had convictions
- did not record or follow up on information about Wilce received after announcement of his appointment.
