It was all on yesterday
as the knives came out at the Te Runanga o Ngati Awa (TRONA) board meeting.
After sending an email to
the chairman of the tribe’s financial arm and copying in his fellow board
members, Pouroto Ngaropo was out for blood and his first move was to ask for
the formal resignation of Sir Wira Gardiner.
The former civil servant
had tended his resignation at the previous meeting of the TRONA board and
decreed that Graham Pryor would take over from him as the chairman of Ngati Awa
Group Holdings (NAGHL).
Normally, any movements
on NAGHL would be done at the company’s annual general meeting at the end of
the year but Mr Ngaropo said he wanted the TRONA board to pass a resolution that
it “formerly accepts Sir Wira’s resignation today”.
It was then that it was raised
that Sir Wira had sent an email to the TRONA chairman, Joe Mason, saying he
would formerly stand down on June 30. The email also asked the TRONA board to
consider appointing Ngai Tamapare representative Paul Quinn to replace him as a
director.
The email had been sent
the night before and Mr Ngaropo opposed the introduction of the email because
it had not been included in the board papers, however Mr Mason said that it was
relevant to the discussion and shared it with the board.
Mr Mason then asked them
to vote on whether they would accept Mr Quinn’s appointment as an interim NAGHL
director.
The move was seconded by
Ngāti Hokopū ki Hokowhitū representative Maanu Paul. Ngāti Hokopū ki Wairaka
delegate Dayle Hunia objected to the lack of process and suggested the director
position be advertised with the outlook of an appointment being made at the
next meeting.
Chief executive Enid
Ratahi-Pryour said the appointment would be only for the interim because the
position would be up for rotation at the tribe’s annual general meeting and Mr
Quinn would only be filling in for five months.
Mr Quinn has made no
secret that he has wants to be a director of the financial arm and he took the
position with eight board members voting in favour of him replacing Sir Wira,
five against and Aubrey Kohunui from Warahoe choosing to abstain.
Mr Ngaropo then went for
the jugular and called for the removal of Mr Pryor as a NAGHL director. He said
he could not support Sir Wira’s assertion that Mr Pryor would take over as
chair of the financial arm.
“I believe that Graham
Pryor has a conflict of interest. I have strong opposition to Graham Pryor
standing a chairman (of NAGHL) or any committee for that matter.”
Cast you minds back to
March when it
was outlined that Mr Pryor had approved a $3.8 million contract with a carbon
management company that he was a member of without gaining the NAGHL board’s
approval first.
The report revealed that,
crucially, Mr Pryor had not passed on legal advice to the other NAGHL directors
that warned against the contract despite it being addressed to the board of the
financial arm.
Sir Wira posthumously
rubberstamped it and so the deal was pushed through. That was when a long-serving
member of the Ngati Awa Farm committee, Jim Davies, approached The Whakatane
Beacon about his concerns.
Eventually Mr Davies was
forced to resign and Sir Wira attended a TRONA board meeting to smooth the
situation with the previous board submitting to his aggressive assertions that
neither he nor Mr Pryor had done anything wrong.
Now apply to that to Mr
Pryor’s removal yesterday and consider this: Mr Pryor was not removed because
he had failed to pass on crucial advice or because he had personally benefitted
from a deal between NAGHL and a company that he had been a director of but
because he is also the chairman of Ngati Rangitihi, a group that is opposing
Ngati Awa’s claim to a Matata urupa and other tribal boundaries.
A resolution was made by
Mr Ngaropo and seconded by Mr Paul to remove Mr Pryor as a director of NAGHL.
The vote was undertaken
by secret ballot with two independent people counting the ballots. Mr Mason
refused to announce the numbers in favour and against because he believed that
was part of the method of a secret ballot vote and simply said that the
resolution to remove Mr Pryor from NAGHL had been successful.
While there is some sense
in removing Mr Pryor because it could be difficult for him to remain objective
while he was also the chairman of Ngati Rangitihi, there is a question of
creating an unfair precedent and also the lack of due process.
Mate Heitia, who was
standing in for Te Kei Merito to represent Ngāti Rangataua, raised her concerns about the precendent it would set by
excluding a whanau because of their ties to another iwi.
Mrs Hunia, again, warned about the lack of due
process and highlighted a section of the NAGHL constitution that required the
TRONA board to advise that they intended to vote on the future of a director at
the meeting before it took place.
Māori Land Court judge Layne Harvey, who
happened to be in the gallery, stood and claimed that the NAGHL constitution
allowed for a director to be removed at any stage. He had to reclaim his
assertion when Mrs Hunia presented him with the constitution.
Mrs Ratahi-Pryor said she had sought legal
advice about removing a director. She said the runanga’s lawyer believed TRONA
could vote remove Mr Pryor and that two members of the board had to sign the
notification.
While, personally, I do not oppose the removal
of Mr Pryor the fact that the board are still not following process concerns
me. There is a thin line between believing you are doing the right thing and,
then, just making up the rules.
Yesterday, there was robust debate around
important areas but it will be tarnished if the board cannot follow the rules
that have been laid out.
It is obvious that there has been a call for
change from the people but what is the point of making the changes if everything
just stays the same? The key is acting in a way that shows integrity and
respect – there is nothing respectful in not respecting the rules that have
been set.
It has been awhile since my last post to Tu Mai
Te Toki as I have not attended the previous two meetings. I have considered
writing other posts before now however I have been reluctant because without
observing firsthand I am left to rely on other people for information.
This always poses two problems: firstly, I must
ask people for the information. Often this proves difficult because even though
I am an uri of Ngāti Awa and therefore, I believe, entitled to it there is
always the concern that those people will be held responsible if they give me
the information.
And the threat has already been made by the
management of TRONA if this happens.
This obviously places the representatives of my
own hāpu in precarious situations so I choose not to put them in uncomfortable
positions by not asking. Also, I do not want to make my own hāpu feel as though
they cannot talk openly at our marae meetings and I have chosen not to use
information that is discussed in this forum.
Secondly, I am reliant on those people giving
me a fair and balanced view of what happened and this is not always the case. We all
have our interpretations and beliefs and these can often colour our recall.
I have asked management on several occassions
for information and more often than not I have been ignored. The chief
executive of TRONA has also taken the extraordinary step of not allowing those
sitting in the public gallery to have a copy of the agenda.
She has used my absence in previous meetings to
villify myself and this blog. It is not the first time that criticisms have
been made but I am still resolute in my belief that, in the interest of
accountability and transparency, the people of Ngāti Awa deserve to know what
is going on with our Runanga.
And so I will keep writing this blog in my way
and therefore I have made the choice to write about things when I either
witness them myself or I have documentation that can back up what I am saying.
Yesterday’s meeting was a full one and so as I
leave you to digest the news that Mr Pryor has been removed from NAGHL, I will pen
another post about the review of TRONA’s commitees that has been conducted over
the past couple of months.
Ma te wa.
