Maori business project suspended

A taxpayer-funded Maori business development project has been suspended amid concerns over conflicts of interest, value for money and whether it complied with its contract.

The Dominion Post newspaper reported the Tekau Plus project, designed to develop 10 Maori businesses so each would earn $10 million of foreign exchange within a decade, was suspended in November.

The Maori Development Ministry, Te Puni Kokiri, (TPK) has said, if "fees were taken inappropriately, recovery action will be taken".

An investigation by the newspaper indicated tens of thousands of dollars were charged for work such as reading media articles, a business awards list and economic forecasts.

The project was worth $3m and two-thirds of the money has already been paid out.

Tekau Plus was a partnership between the Government-appointed Maori Trustee, Maori business network the Federation of Maori Authorities (Foma) and the Poutama Trust, which provides business services for Maori.

The project was run by Foma subsidiary Fomana Capital. Maori Trustee, John Paki, was chairman.

TPK chief executive Leith Comer repeatedly told Mr Paki he had failed to produce evidence that the project was achieving its contracted "outputs", letters released under the Official Information Act showed.

Mr Comer said he told Mr Paki 16 times that Tekau had failed to provide documents and evidence required for a six-month period.

A report on Tekau accounts showed nearly $1.2m of taxpayers' money was paid to Fomana Capital - but there were no descriptions of the services it provided, what the money was spent on or what work was done by Fomana or third parties it hired.