October 21, 2013
Kohanga story riles Turia
Maori Party co-leader Tariana Turia is disappointed with the approach taken by Maori Television to internal ructions within Kohanga Reo.
The Native Affairs current affairs show has questioned credit card spending totalling about $10,000 by the trust's former chair and long term trustee, Dame Iritana Tawhiwhirangi, and her daughter in law Lynda Tawhiwhirangi.
As a result there are now multiple internal and external reviews of the trust and its commercial subsidiary Te Pataka Ohanga.
Mrs Turia says the programme seemed designed to cast the trust in as negative light as possible.
"The whole way in which that was handled, you would have thought that a huge amount of money had been taken. The fact too that they portrayed it as if it was the national trust and its trustees who were involved, when in reality it was a subsidiary company," Mrs Turia says.
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