The Pipi Foundation, the charitable trust that disgraced Act MP Donna Awatere Huata was jailed for defrauding, is facing liquidation.
The application for liquidation, posted in the New Zealand Gazette, was filed in the High Court at Napier by the Commissioner for Inland Revenue and a hearing is
to be held there on July 19.
Mrs Awatere Huata and her husband, Wi Huata, were found guilty in 2005 of stealing $80,000 from the foundation, a reading programme for underprivileged Maori children.
The foundation received more than $840,000 in Government funding over three years and was once a provider of a highly regarded reading-education programme.
Mrs Awatere Huata, who paid for a stomach stapling operation from Pipi funds, was convicted of five fraud charges and one of attempting to pervert the course of justice and jailed for two years and nine months.
She was paroled in September after nine months in jail and less than three months on home detention.
Wi Huata, convicted on four counts of fraud and one of attempting to pervert the course of justice, was sentenced to two years' imprisonment but was later bailed while he and his wife appealed to the Court of Appeal against their convictions and sentences.
Their action last October failed and he was returned to jail.
Foundation chairman Des Ratima said in October he was confident it could pay Inland Revenue what it owed, despite having no income.
- OTAGO DAILY TIMES
