New Zealand First leader Winston Peters has criticised the Ministry of Health for spending almost $2 million a year on traditional Maori healing, which he says appears to be a serious waste of taxpayer money.
Radio New Zealand reported the ministry has contracts with 15 Rongoa Maori agencies, which use traditional healing techniques such as massage and herbal remedies.
It has pent about $7.6 million funding the services over the past four years.
Mr Peters told Radio NZ this morning there had been no analysis of how well the healing techniques work.
"You can't get any read-outs of results or any analysis of what is being done and how it's being done and the success rate. It's about $130 for each client contact when we've got not idea what's going on."
He said nobody was being held accountable for how the money was being spent.
"There's no place for a system which has no analysis as to whether it's successful, whether it's appropriate, what its likely success rate will be, whether changes should be made. On the face of it, it appears to be a serious waste of taxpayers' money."
