Maori Affairs Dept comes under attack

Press, 6 March 1984, Page 6

Maori Affairs Dept comes under attack

PA Wellington The Maori Affairs Department deprived Maori people of about $2 million worth of vital research and other services by significantly underspending its 1982-83 budget, according to the Victoria University professor of finance Professor Whatarangi Winiata. Professor Winiata said the department underspent its vote at a rate 11 times as great as that of total Government underspending. This suggested that the department was more attentive to “gaining Brownie points” for underspending than to the needs of Maori people, he said. “it could indicate a preoccupation with novel programmes which are small budget items,” he said.

Professor Winiata said it was distressing that the Maori Council was not able to carry out urgent research in that year because of lack of funding while the department “wittingly or unwit-

tingly was returning to the Consolidated Account funds which had been voted specifically for Maori purposes.” He said the council, a statutory body with wideranging responsibilities in the affairs of Maoridom, had to survive on a budget of about $lOO,OOO, much from private Maori sources, while the department underspent a “staggering” $1,155,000 on its administration programme alone. Other areas of big underspending were social services programme ($425,000 underspent out of a vote of $10,860,000), Maori Land Court and titles ($134,000 underspent out of $1,725,000), and housing ($256,000 out of $21,607,000). He said the department should co-operate with the council in funding programmes of common interest for which the council had no money. He is to put his proposal before a meeting of the

Maori Council. Professor Winiata said the Maori Affairs vote of $63,405,000 for 1982-83 was less than 0.5 per cent of the total Government appropriation of $13,428,614,000 excluding debt servicing and miscellaneous investment and financing transactions.

Underspending by the Maori Affairs Department — $2,098,000 — was 3.31 per ent of its total vote. This compared with over-all underspending of $40,852,000 or 0.3 per cent of total appropriations — a rate 11 times lower than Maori Affairs.

The Maori Council, entirely voluntary, should have a full-time paid chairman supported by appropriate secretarial staff and with the ability to finance efficient research.

Extra funds, not spent by the department, could be used to set this up, he said. The Minister of Maori Affairs, Mr Couch, could not be reached for comment.