P.M. refuses to meet financier

Press, 21 January 1987, Page 1

P.M. refuses to meet financier

Wellington reporter

The Prime Minister, Mr Lange, yesterday stuck firmly to his criticism of Mr Max Raepple, a prominent figure in the Maori Affairs, loan fiasco.

Mr Lange claimed Mr Raepple was no international financier.

Mr Raepple has demanded an apology for Mr Lange’s earlier criticism of him, as the broker of phoney, foreignsourced loans. He has threatened to take legal action against the Prime Minister.

The Prime Minister’s latest comments came after he refused to meet Mr Raepple because Mr Raepple had not provided evidence of his credentials.

“When he claimed to be the financial adviser to 27 foreign governments I asked for particulars of them. He has furnished none. Attempts were made, including a fascimile line laid on, so that thosg credentials might be sent to me, when I would meet him on the instant. “No such credentials have been furnished. There is a simple reason for that,” Mr Lange told reporters after the Cabinet met yesterday.

The Prime Minister chided the New Zealand news media for accepting at face value Mr Raepple as a West German financier who had offered to help Maori Affairs raise a $6OO million foreign loan.

The State Services Commission report on the loan fiasco, released before Christmas, shows that draft agreements existed for the payment of a $l5 million fee to Mr Raepple for his part in arranging the proposed loan. Mr Lange, said Mr Raepple was unknown in orthodox banking circles. He had described himself in the Cook Islands as a “Californian philanthro-

pist" while, in other places, he had said he had a Maori son-in-law.

“Unhappily he has made an utter fool of several Maori people to the great detriment of Maoridom generally," said Mr Lange. “There has developed in qome of the Maori whingers and activists something of a cargo cult mentality of what Maori enterprise is about, and I have a real sympathy for Maori people in the last few weeks who have had to put up with their standing in the community being absolutely ravaged by groups of selfappointed experts in international finance, ranging from discharged bankrupts to lapsed priests, to probation officers and •, to, all sorts of people who accept ... the bone tides of a man who will not allow his credentials to be read even by a newspaper, and then for the newspaper industry to have the gall to have me conduct an inquiry into the man," Mr Lange said.

The Prime Minister said he inquired about Mr Raepple three weeks ago, before he .had made his initial assertion.

“He has had the opportunity now for some weeks to sue me for describing him in the florid terms that I did. Because those terms were true, he has not sued me.

“He will later repair to Vanuatu where he is involved in a project to raise a ‘soft loan.’ A soft loan, of course, does not exist, but his fee for preparing the application will be true,” Mr Lange said.

Documents .. existed showing Mr Raepple’s involvement in another loan in the Cook Islands,, he said.

Mr Raepple left Auckland by air yesterday and last evening was in Vanuatu.