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Regional | Crime

New revelation in Te Rōpū Taurima o Manukau dilemma

Yesterday, Te Rōpū Taurima welcomed the Ministry of Health (MoH) with open arms.  Today, new revelation has arisen.

The Ministry of Health has called in PricewaterhouseCoopers to undertake a forensic audit of Māori disabilities service, Te Rōpū Taurima o Manukau.

The investigation will begin early next week, following allegations of misappropriation of funds, but now, new evidence has revealed allegations were first raised with the MoH over six months ago.

The Ministry says evidence was found of an anonymous call in December 2013 to the Fraud Hotline Service, alleging a staff member at Te Rōpū Taurima was involved in inappropriate financial dealings. However that information was never passed on to the auditors assigned to the Te Rōpū Taurima financial audit.

As well as that, the NZ Public Service Association (PSA) who represents over 460 staff working at Te Rōpū Taurima, want the chief executive gone, following the resignation of the chair of the board earlier this week.

Richard Wagstaff from PSA said, "...the Chief Executive is failing in his current duties within the current problem.  Staff want to know what's going on, ... they've got questions, we've got questions, the CE won't respond to our phone calls."

Meanwhile the Ministry is continuing its work.

The forensic audit on Te Rōpū Taurima by PricewaterhouseCoopers will begin on Monday.