Public funds misused: staffer fired

Marama Hunia was sacked in March from her position as Auckland officer manager for Pacific Trade & Investment over suspected misuse of funds. Photo / Nick Reed

Exclusive: Worker owned up but taxpayer-funded forum didn’t tell police for months.

A taxpayer-funded agency sat on a suspected case of fraud and delayed complaining to police and informing government officials for months, despite the woman at the centre of the case offering an immediate confession.

The case has drawn criticism from Labour MP and former Foreign Affairs Minister Phil Goff, who said the delays and apparent lack of oversight were unacceptable.

Marama Hunia, 33, was sacked in March from her position as Auckland officer manager for Pacific Trade & Investment, an arm of the taxpayer-funded Pacific Island Forum, over suspected misuse of funds.

PT&I is established by law to promote exports activity and investment in the Pacific region.

"I have misappropriated [money]. I guess I've done fraud," Ms Hunia said yesterday.

She had misused her employer's company petrol and travel cards, including for international flights, during most of the four years she had been employed at PT&I. "I guess it was just so easy for me to do. Just things I used for personal use - it wasn't for company use. It ended up turning into quite a lot of money."

She was unaware of the total involved, but agreed it would be many tens of thousands of dollars. Weekend Herald investigations suggest the sum involved exceeds $60,000.

Ms Hunia said she had been open about the fraud since first confronted by PT&I, and even she was surprised by the lack of follow-up action by authorities.

"They said they would get back in touch, but they never have. It's been nearly six months."

Auckland police yesterday confirmed the receipt of a formal complaint, but said the file was so fresh an officer in charge was yet to be assigned.

The Weekend Herald understands the police complaint was laid only in the past fortnight, four months after concerns were first raised.

A spokesperson said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade was made aware of the possibility of fraud involving taxpayer funds in April, two months after PT&I first began its probe into Ms Hunia's spending.

The ministry had pressed for more briefings, and PT&I was "improving their financial controls in response to this incident". The spokesperson said "it would be inappropriate to comment" given the police investigation.

Mr Goff, foreign minister between 1999 and 2005, was critical of the Government's handling of the incident. "I would have expected police action to have taken place earlier, and I would have expected the funding provider to have been advised earlier," he said.

The episode should spark major changes at both the ministry and PT&I.

"When you're putting taxpayer money in for a public good and it's been hijacked in a fraudulent way, you want to make sure the systems used are improved so that can never happen again," he said.

The head of PT&I, trade commissioner Michael Greenslade, defended his handling of the affair, saying "stakeholders were advised of the situation" as their investigation into Ms Hunia's actions progressed.

He took his stewardship of public funds seriously and said a need to establish just what had occurred dictated the timing of the police complaint.

Mr Greenslade said he took up his role in November 2014, after most of the alleged fraud had taken place, and it was "extremely frustrating and very disappointing this issue occurred under previous management". PT&I had operated with an acting head for a year before his appointment.

Foreign Minister Murray McCully said in a statement: "The allegations are disappointing and rightly a matter for police investigation".