Business leader wants to ban men

By ANGELA GREGORY

Maori men are struggling to keep afloat small businesses they have set up through a scheme which has rarely failed Maori women.

The Maori Women's Development Incorporation decided last year to allow men to apply for loans from its development fund for the first time.

The chief executive, Dame Georgina Kirby, said six men were granted loans to help them to set up new businesses, but they had all run into problems.

Dame Georgina said she wanted the lending policy reviewed. "Personally, I don't want the men to be lent money any more. But I need to discuss that with the other incorporation trustees."

The men were reluctant to accept advice and would not sufficiently involve their women partners in the businesses, which was one of the loan criteria, she said.

"The men took control and the women allowed it to happen. We said the men had to share, but they were finding it difficult to even discuss that with their wives or partners."

Dame Georgina said that people who went into business needed appropriate training and certain skills, regardless of their gender. "The women are being responsible for what they don't know ... Men are a different kettle of fish altogether. They have different attitudes towards money."

Dame Georgina said she had impressed on the men the need for business plans.

"But they stand back and say they know what needs to be done ... They are hedging every time."

In one case a man had set up a contract business to local bodies. He did very well and made a lot of money, but it "went to his head," Dame Georgina said.

"The bills and the tax got away on him ... We had to put his sister in to take over and then it stabilised."

Dame Georgina said that in the past 12 years the incorporation had successfully lent money to Maori women who had set up about 3000 businesses, of which only six had failed.

One of the first Maori women to gain a loan, Cammie Moewai McKinlay, said she had had the business skills to meet the incorporation's criteria.

Mrs McKinlay received a $20,000 loan 11 years ago to start a furniture manufacturing and retail outlet.

Four years later she borrowed another $20,000 from the incorporation to expand the operation.

The business, Houselot Interiors, has grown from one small shop to four stores in Auckland, and the loans have been repaid.