Something wicked this way comes

Waaka Vercoe did not resign as the chairman of Ngati Awa’s audit committee, he was pushed.

Mr Vercoe was replaced on the committee by new board member Brian Tunui. The committee is also comprised of board members Regina O’Brien (Gina) and Charlie Elliott, two representatives from accountant firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers and independent member Peter Taylor.

Speaking at the board meeting in April, Te Pahipoto representative Mr Elliott was adamant that Mr Vercoe was forced to stand down at the end of last year.

Mr Elliott said he and Mrs O’Brien had gone to see Mr Vercoe after hearing through the grape-vine that the long-serving governor had been removed from the committee.

“Gina and I spoke to Waaka about this issue and Waaka didn’t resign, he was made to,” he said.

Mrs O’Brien verified Mr Elliott’s account of the conversation with Mr Vercoe, however there was no further discussion this issue by the board.

The issue of Mr Vercoe’s absence was first raised by Te Runanga o Ngati Awa chief executive Enid Ratahi-Pryor at the meeting with Ngati Hokopu at Wairaka in March.

Mrs Ratahi-Pryor said Mr Vercoe stood down voluntarily because he was getting old and tired.

“He decided it is time for a change. It is time for new blood.”

After that meeting I decided to check out Mrs Ratahi-Pryor’s statements and I came away with the same story as Mr Elliott and Mrs O'Brien. 

I sat with him for four hours in the kitchen of his Wairaka home and I was entertained with a series of stories and anecdotes.

But also during that conversation he confirmed that he had been pushed out of his seat at the head of the audit committee by chairman of the tribe’s commercial arm, Ngati Awa Group Holdings Ltd (NAGHL).

Mr Vercoe said Wira Gardiner had forced him off the committee after he refused to allow Omataroa Trust, which he also chairs, to back a honey venture that Mr Gardiner was promoting.

He was obviously disappointed.

And yes, Mr Vercoe is getting old and perhaps his advanced years mean that his mind is not as sharp as it was but he still has experience and knowledge.

And he feels he still has something to give the tribe.

Coincidentally, however, Mr Vercoe was the person who signed off the controversial audit committee that highlighted Mr Gardiner’s role in the conflict of interest surrounding NAGHL board member Graham Pryor.

Mr Gardiner could not be reached for comment.

Obviously this is a he says/she says situation but I would like to know how people are selected for the sub-committees of the TRONA and NAGHL boards and who decides when the members should stand down.

The committees are important tools in the operations of Te Runanga o Ngati Awa and at the end of the day the organisation was created to manage our assets. Therefore I would like to know that the responsibility has been entrusted to the people who have the right skills and motivations to do the jobs.

Meanwhile, speaking of jobs I wanted to share some news. On the back of this blog I am currently in talks with the editor of the Whakatane Beacon, Mark Longley, about becoming a regular contributor to the newspaper.

My proposal was that I could be a weekly contributor who writes about local issues as a trained journalist and from a Maori point of view.

Mr Longley has been reading this blog and said he would be very interested in a regular column.

We spoke of broadening the focus of Tu Mai Te Toki.

And while Ngati Awa politics will at times be the subject of the column, neither of us want it be contained to such a narrow purpose. Nor do I want the column, and the blog, to always be negative.

He has gone away to crunch the numbers and asked to see a draft column so he could see how I write.

Therefore, I wanted to show Mr Longley, and you, that I could write about another issue.

This is what I submitted:

A group of Whakatane residents have fiercely opposed a scientific trial to clean up the poisoned Kopeopeo canal.

Submissions on the Regional Council's application for resource consent to remove and clean up sediment contaminated with dioxins from the canal closed this week. A decision will be announced after a hearing but given the level of interest in this situation I decided to write about the debate.

The Kopeopeo canal was identified as a contaminated area after surface run-off and storm-water containing Pentachlorophenol (PCP) from the NZ Forest Products Ltd sawmill was discharged into it between 1950 and 1989.

Used by the mill to treat timber, PCP has been found to contain dioxins that can cause diabetes, pancreatic cancer, leukemia, auto-immune diseases and other disorders.

The group of residents who are fiercely opposing the consent attended the consultation meetings held by the Whakatane District Council and many of its members were strongly vocal at the final meeting held at Wairaka Marae this week.

They believe the dioxins could be spread if the resource consent is granted and they want to leave the clean-up until further research has been done.

Listening to their points it seems there is an element of "not in my back-yard" and I reckon they have missed the point.

The canal is not the only contaminated site in the area. 

There are at least 36 sites in Whakatane, more across the country, and the Regional Council is using the project to trial the process with the hope that it could be used to clean up the other spots.

It is something my Dad believes in.

He was five-years-old when he used to swim in the Kopeopeo Canal every day. By the time he turned six, his family had moved to Muriwai Drive and the house across road from the mudflats that were beginning to be filled with waste from the mill.

Then when he was 18-years old, he started working at the mill.

My Dad knows about PCP and has the scars to prove it.

Buckled by the debilitating disease that has turned his body against itself, my Dad has lived with it for almost every day of his life. It is a legacy he has passed on to me and perhaps to my son.

As a result he is passionate about finding a way to clean it up and that is why he joined the watchdog group, Sawmill Workers Against Poisons (SWAP).

Now he is the chairman and a facilitator for the group. He has read the research, talked with the people and heard the arguments.

It is not going to be easy but he says he has faith in the science.

Under the trial, the Regional Council is working with the community on the project to clean up the canal to remove, store and clean up the contaminated sediment using bioremediation. The method looks to break down contaminants using trees and mushrooms.

And it has its results.

The next stage of the trial requires a section of the canal to be drained, the sediment removed and trucked to three separate pits that will be lined with Geonet mat to stop the contaminants leeching out. The pits are then inoculated and planted with mushrooms and trees

It is hoped that the levels of dioxin in the soil will be reach acceptable levels within 15 years.

The process was designed by scientists from Massy and Waikato Universities and the operations have been planned by experts who have been careful and meticulous.

Risks are minimal, my Dad says to me, and the results could be immense.

The time for sitting on our hands is over.

Bad things happen when good people do nothing.

A controversial report is calling for the structure of Te Runanga o Ngati Awa (TRONA) to be reviewed.

The suggestion was noted in a report from the audit committee but was overshadowed by the revelation that there had been a serious issue around a conflict of interest. The report stated that a director of the runanga’s financial arm, Ngati Awa Gro up Holdings Ltd (NAGHL), had faciliatated a business deal with a company where he was also a director.

Written as a result of an audit into the organisation’s financial accounts by PriceWaterhouseCoopers, the report was signed off by the then-chairman of the runanga’s Audit committee, Waaka Vercoe.

Today, in a bid to add context, I propose to discuss the structure of the runanga. It was outlined by the runanga chief executive Enid Ratahi-Pryor at the meeting with Ngati Hokopu at Wairaka last month and I believe that to have a better understanding of some of the things that are going on in the runanga we must discuss it here.

At the head of the organization is the TRONA board with 22-members elected by the hapu of Ngati Awa. A chairman is selected to represent the board and in this case this is Te Kei Merito from Poroporo.

Mrs Ratahi-Pryor said she works very closely to Mr Merito.

“Your link is through the board. (Chairman) Te Kei Merito is my boss. I actually link directly to Te Kei. Initially I didn’t have a link to the hapu but im going to change that.”

To the side is the financial arm of the runanga, NAGHL, which is charged with managing the financial assets of the tribe and “creating wealth”.

Every year NAGHL give TRONA a $1.5 million dividend to help develop social initiatives such as education grants and iwi development.

NAGHL is governed by a board of five directors including Jo Mason, Waaka Vercoe, Graham Pryor, Brian Tunui. Former civil servant Wira Gardiner chairs the board.

According to Mrs Ratahi-Pryor beneath these two structures are several boards.

The executive committee made up by Mr Merito and board members Pouroto Ngaropo and Materoa Dodd.

Remuneration is Mr Merito and Mr Ngaropo along with the chief executive and board member Regina O’Brien.

The group charged with the organisation’s investments is new NAGHL director Brian Tunui and the man who helped facilitate the deal with CO2 New Zealand Management company, Graham Pryor. Civil servant Kay Read was recently appointed to the investment committee as the third member.

Mrs Ratahi-Pryor said Mrs Read’s appointment was in the interest of succession-planning but did not expand on how the selection was made.

And finally the Audit Committee which is made up by board representatives Charlie Elliot and Mrs O’Brien, two representatives from PWC and independent member Peter Taylor. The committee was chaired by Waaka Vercoe, however he was recently replaced by Mr Tunui.

Mrs Ratahi-Pryor said this was because Mr Vercoe was old and getting tired.

“He decided it is time for a change. It is time for new blood.”

Mrs Ratahi-Pryor, herself, is the chief executive of TRONA and NAGHL. The two roles were amalgamated under previous chief executive, Tiaki Hunia, who held the position for three months before he quit and Mrs Ratahi-Pryor was appointed.

And while many of the “bad” investments were made under another chief executive Jeremy Gardiner we must remember that before she took on her current role Mrs Ratahi-Pryor was a TRONA board member and a NAGHL director.

According to other board members Mrs Ratahi-Pryor was an active member of the board and the minutes of previous meeting shows she was often vocal in meetings.

With this in mind, shifting the blame for poor decisions is simply not feasible. Sure most of the bad investments were made under the previous chief executives particularly Mr Gardiner jnr but Mrs Ratahi-Pryor was part of the decision-making team and surely she must accept responsibility for this as much as anyone else?

Whether she was incompetent or ignorant it simply does not matter because as philosopher Edmund Burke said: ‘All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing’.

And that is why I started this blog.

It wasn’t to personally attack anyone. I do not have any personal agenda and I will not share my opinions about personal lives unless it affects the operations of the tribe.

But I will no longer sit back and do nothing about what I think is a very serious situation. As I have said before, I believe my role is to provide as much information as I can so that you can make your own informed decisions.

Elections for the TRONA board are this year and we have an opportunity to let our leaders know what we think.

And while I am delighted that many of you have chosen to share your opinions and thoughts I am disappointed that some of the comments have taken to slandering others without much proof. While some of the statements are probably true, the anonymous nature of the poster makes it unfair on those who are being targeted.

Many of you have noticed that I have chosen to use my real name, I have not hidden behind a pseudonym or remained anonymous, and as part of that I must be confident that the information I choose to share on here is correct and that I can back it up if I need to.

And I am confident that every statement of fact that I have made on this blog can be backed up with documents or through other people’s evidence.

So whanau, continue to share your thoughts but please ensure that you maintain a healthy respect for each other.

Heoi ano, next week I am hoping to confirm the story behind the change in the people on the audit committee.

Ma te wa.