$15M fee for Maori Affairs loan, says draft

Press, 24 December 1986, Page 1

$15M fee for Maori Affairs loan, says draft

Wellington reporter

A draft fee agreement shows that the Maori Affairs Department may have agreed to pay a second international financier $l5 million for arranging a $6OO million loan.

The member of Parliament for Tauranga, Mr Winston Peters, yesterday circulated copies of a draft agreement between the department and Mr Max Raepple, a German financier who is identified as the president of Development Project Realisation, Ltd. Last week’s interim report into the Maori development loans affair by the State Services Commission chairman, Dr Rod Deane, said the Secretary for Maori Affairs, Dr Tamati Reedy, signed a fee agreement in favour of Mr Raepple about November 11. The draft “uncondi-

tional and irrevocable fee agreement” circulated by Mr Peters proposes that Mr Raepple received 2.5 per cent of the loan transaction. It carried no signatures, unlike a similar agreement circulated by Mr Peters last week, which was signed by Dr Reedy and undertook to pay Mr Michael Gisondi a fee of 3.5 per cent for arranging finance of $6OO million. The disclosure of that agreement launched the loans affair and subsequent disclosures on the negotiations between the department and the two financiers. After Treasury

concern about the size and terms of the proposed loan, negotiations were broken off and the fee agreements apparently made inoperative. Mr Peters claimed yesterday that the second agreement showed the fees proposed for those arranging the loan were more than the $2l million initially identified in the agreement with Mr Gisondi. Mr Peters claimed that Mr Raepple had prepared the draft for the department to have written up later on its letterhead paper. Furthermore, Mr Raepple had demanded that the department meet his travel expenses from Germany to Hawaii and all his costs while there. ■He said that he had further documents relating to the loans affair but would not disclose them yet.

Mr Peters accused the Government of stalling over the release of a second report by Dr Deane on the loan negotiations. That fuller report is, expected to be given to the Minister of State Services, Mr Rodger, today. Further reports, page 5