Businessman says Minister briefed on loan deal
PA Wellington A Rotorua businessman and former bankrupt, Robert (Rocky) Cribb, says he and senior Maori Affairs Department officials briefed the Minister of Maori Affairs, Mr Wetere, on the loan deal in October.
The 10-minute briefing took place after his second and final visit to Hawaii for the dual purpose of helping raise the $6OO million loan and setting up a business deal for New Zealand-made prefabricated wooden houses to be sold in Hawaii. However, Mr Cribb, who is director of United Finance and Securities Ltd, which went into receivership recently, said he was not working for either Mr Wetere or the department. The loan that was being arranged through Hawaiian financier. Mr
Michael Gisondi, and the West German, Mr Max Raepple, was to have come from a bona fide source in the Middle East, Mr Cribb indicated.
He would not give further details about the source, saying that the reporter should wait for the full State Services Commission report on the matter to be released on Monday. The loan was “not going to be thrown out into the (New Zealand) marketplace and given willy-nilly to anybody,” Mr Cribb said in a telephone interview from his Rotorua home.
The former Secretary for Maori Affairs, Mr Kara Puketapu, said yesterday there was nothing to his resignation, which is now the subject of a State Services Commission inquiry.
Mr Puketapu. who re-
signed to work full time for the privately owned Maori development company Maori International, said it would be improper for him to comment while Sir James Wicks was holding an inquiry. He said that as far as he was aware, there was nothing to the suggestions made in Parliament by the Under-Secretary for Finance, Mr Trevor de Cleene, that he (Mr Puketapu) was allowed to retire, otherwise he would have been disciplined and sacked.
Mr Gisondi, wants to give New Zealand politicians a piece of his mind, he told “Auckland Star” reporter, Warren Berryman.
“I’m appalled at the ignorance and audacity of your Ministers of Parliament who linked my name to that of Ferdinand Marcos”, he said.
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Press, 20 December 1986, Page 10
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354Businessman says Minister briefed on loan deal Press, 20 December 1986, Page 10
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