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New Zealand Public Party leader Billy Te Kahika Jr says he kept thousands of dollars in donations in a can under his bed and did not follow the rules for handling cash, but denies employees’ allegations that he has been plucking. to the faithful of the party.
The Election Commission confirmed Tuesday that it is investigating a complaint about Te Kahika Jr’s New Zealand Public Party (NZPP) over the use of donations.
Former party secretary and accountant Bill Karitiana filed a complaint with the Serious Fraud Office, which was later passed to the Electoral Commission.
Former party executives, members, and candidates you spoke with Stuff They say there are large discrepancies in the party’s accounting system and that donations are kept in a private commercial bank account, of which Te Kahika is a signatory.
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Te Kahika said the accusations are “completely false and unfair” and “Chinese whispers.”
He admits he didn’t have a solid system for counting koha cash.
When asked where the money was kept after each event, he said, “in a cash can, usually under my bed.”
“Very often, my assistants kept the money in cash and I didn’t even know what was being collected,” he said.
While it failed to make a dent in the polls, the party, which pushes an anti-5G and UN agenda, has gathered a large following on social media and crowds of thousands at rallies. Insiders claim that these could have produced between $ 5,000 and $ 10,000 each through minimum donations of $ 20.
Party sources estimate that the largest rallies, such as their marquee event at the Logan Campbell Center in Auckland, have raised as much as $ 50,000, although Te Kahika says it was only $ 18,000.
Former party secretary and accountant Bill Karitiana suspects something is wrong. He said that there was a transparent counter signature system for Te Kahika to follow after each event, but this process was never followed.
Stuff
A list of koha compiled at NZPP events provided to Stuff that party members and candidates say is too low.
He believes he had an ethical and professional responsibility to blow the whistle.
Party cash records released to Stuff report that $ 65,000 was raised in party events, however several party members contend that this is too low as donations flooded the doors.
Te Kahika lived well while traveling around New Zealand to conference events. Records show that he spent $ 4,700 on Auckland’s five-star hotel, The Grand by SkyCity.
About $ 1500 of this was recorded as a cash payment. He also paid $ 4000 in cash to personal security guards and spent $ 5000 on “setup costs.”
One of Karitiana’s main concerns is that the party’s funds were managed through Rubicon Crossing 2020 Limited.
The company has two shareholders, Te Kahika and Michael Stace, the leader of the Reset New Zealand party. Reset had merged with NZPP, which had later merged with Advance NZ.
New Zealand Public Party
Billy Te Kahika has accumulated a large following on the Advance / NZPP Facebook page.
Te Kahika and Stace are shareholders of Rubicon Crossing 2020 Limited with access to the bank account.
Stace said Rubicon existed to manage political parties and their funds, which were becoming important.
The company has declared donations worth $ 65,633 to Advance NZ. Stace said the company had received $ 96,845 in donations until the party merged with Advance NZ on August 11.
All money received after that amount was treated as a donation to Advance NZ. To date, the party has received $ 195,000 in donations from all sources.
Stace said she had nothing to do with raising Koha and pointed to Karatiana as the accountant tasked with creating a system to raise money.
“Personally, I felt that having a CPA on the road with Billy should have been a sufficient guarantee that anything to do with money would be done correctly,” he said.
Karatiana claims that the transparent process was not followed as the cash donations were not deposited into the party’s bank account. She also claims that an endorsement system existed for Te Kahika to follow her after each event, but this was never followed along the way despite repeated requests to do so.
Karatiana, who has never signed a letter of commitment for accounting services with the NZPP leadership, claims that Te Kahika fired him from the secretary position after he raised questions about financial practices.
After the questions were asked by Stuff the party published all its financial records and koha expense sheets. However, Karaitiana’s accusations refer to the money not being stored or recorded in any system.
Te Kahika said she only kept loose records of the money collected during her road trip.
“To be fair, and my wife will attest to it, I’m the worst at handling money,” he said.
“Regarding the koha, we would put it in some cash, put it under the bed in the motel room. We took our coffee and food expenses and we didn’t have the system we had today. “
He also said that he “rounded the koha” as his count was done from memory.
“It could be a bit out of place,” he said.
“I wanted him to be high instead of being accused of low. What we do is use the money from one night to pay the next. Along the way, it wasn’t a lot of money. “
