Police have referred a complaint relating to Manurewa Marae to the Serious Fraud Office.
It comes as the leadership of the under-fire South Auckland marae is facing calls to resign after cutting a swathe of taxpayer-funded social services.
The Sunday Star-Times can reveal the marae’s board held an emergency meeting this week after seven new whistleblowers – including the former social media ‘face’ of the marae, Te Kou o Rehua Panapa – spoke out following the recent axing of social workers, a food bank, a scheme for troubled youth, a driver licence program and a barber shop.
Their concerns were on the agenda at a monthly meeting of the marae’s board, held on Tuesday.
The South Auckland marae was at the centre of a storm of controversy when former staff revealed allegations about the misuse of data collected for a Covid-19 vaccination drive and the 2023 census.
It was claimed that information was used to help Te Pāti Māori’s election campaign. The marae’s then chief executive was Takutai Moana Natasha Kemp, who left after being elected to Parliament in 2023 as a Te Pāti Māori MP.
Police were investigating, alongside the Privacy Commissioner. However, the Star-Times can reveal the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has now taken the lead, almost a year after the allegations were made public.
Cost-cutting at the marae has led to the loss of at least 20 jobs at the South Auckland marae this year.
But the group of new whistleblowers are perplexed, because the marae’s accounts show it has raked in close to $30 million since 2020.
Of that, at least $13.36m came from the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) and the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development, paid out over a six-year period.
The marae has also received funding from the government initiative Whānau Ora. However, lead agency Te Puni Kōkiri, the Department of Māori Affairs, could not say how much.
In a joint statement, the whistleblowers, some of whom the Star-Times has agreed not to name, called for a clean-out of the marae’s board of trustees, the exit of chief executive Hilda Peters, and an independent investigation into the marae’s finances.
They said: “We recognise the significant financial mismanagement, lack of transparency and detrimental impact on the Marae's sustainability and ability to serve its people, and the need for a plan to regain control of the Marae governance and finances, ensuring accountability, transparency and the restoration of its financial wellbeing for the benefit of the current and future generations.”
