Listen Now: 
Download AudioMāori Tourism chair Dale Stephens says assistance to businesses through the Covid pandemic had a social as well as an economic value.
The auditor-general has criticised the way the Government handled the $290 million Strategic Tourism Assets Protection Programme, including a decision to fund all eligible Māori businesses.
Mr Stephens says supporting a business is supporting a community, especially with those Māori businesses which have thousands of shareholders.
“Māori enterprises are supporting entire communities, and we have great examples where we see Māori businesses will forego opportunities to automate their plant because that would cut jobs, so they will stay with an older, more manual process because it’s giving up profit, but it is actually creating social benefit for their people,” he says.
RELATED NEWS
