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The Gisborne District Court has heard that a Maori trust tried to deal in-house with alleged misspending by its chief executive because it didn’t want to risk taking a public hammering.
Ngai Tamanuhiri Whanui Trust finally went to police when the former CEO took a personal grievance for wrongful dismissal.
Te Hemoata Dawn Pomana faces three charge of abusing trust credit cards between 2006 and 2011.
The charges are representative and total $22,000, including one made up of 94 cash withdrawals from a cash machine near a TAB.
General manager Richard Brooking told the court the trust was on the brink of financial collapse when he stepped in during September 2011, and his primary concern was not with prosecution but on finding funds to keep it afloat.
He made a special application to draw down money from a fund that was an advance on the tribe’s 2012 treaty settlement.
The case is continuing.
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