The books need to be opened and scrutinized at a Tainui charitable trust.
A Tainui tribal charity has spent donations on gambling sprees, junk food, overseas junkets, and luxury-brand shoes while giving nothing back to the tribe.
It is alleged that less than half of 1 per cent of the nearly $15,000,000 donated to the Ururangi Trust ever went to helping needy tribal members.
The trust – associated with Maori king Tuheitia Paki, convicted criminal Rangi Whakaruru, and the notorious Tukuroirangi Morgan – claims to represent low-income families, the elderly, children and youth of the Tainui tribe.
Instead, donations to the trust have been diverted to the personal activities of a select group of individuals, risking damage to the reputation of the entire Tainui tribal group and tribal members.
The trust has spent the money – $15,000,000 – large amounts of which are missing, and have racked up debts totalling hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Since 2008, Tainui tribal donors have been misled into believing that the trust was acting in the interests of the wider Tainui tribe.
While an unidentified spokesman denies that the Ururangi trust is “broke”, it is reported that the trust is seeking an urgent cash injection from tribal donors in order to cover the Maori king’s gambling losses and Rangi Whakaruru’s pile of debts.
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