Tamihere cited for suspect invoices

By JON STOKES and PHIL TAYLOR

A private investigator's report into suspect invoices paid by the Waipareira Trust says they were approved by MP John Tamihere.

Earlier media reports said the payments were approved by Mr Tamihere's former financial manager at the trust, Mike Tolich, but a copy of the report, obtained by the Weekend Herald, names both men as approving the invoices for payment.

The report by former Serious Fraud Office investigator Phil Roigard, of Paragon Risk, recommends that the trust board consider referring the matter to police or the SFO. Trust deputy chairwoman Naida Glavish said yesterday that the board would do so.

The report says "we believe that the eight paid invoices are not genuine" and that $100,000 was involved.

Its reasons for suspecting the invoices include:

* The inability to identify the organisations receiving the payments.

* The false or vague nature of their addresses.

* The "identical nature" of the invoices, including common spelling mistakes.

* Cheque requisition orders breached procedure by not having purchase order numbers.

* No evidence of products or services identified in the invoices could be found in Waipareira records.


The cheques were made out to cash and appear to have been written by Mr Tolich, the report says.

"The invoices were approved for payment by both Mike Tolich and John Tamihere."

Mr Tamihere, as chief executive, and Mr Tolich, as chief financial officer, worked together at the trust for most of the 1990s.

Mr Tamihere left about July 1999 to campaign for the general election.

Mr Tolich says he left in February 2000, and later worked for a time as Mr Tamihere's electorate chairman.

Two of the cheques relate to invoices dated December 1998, the others to June 1999.

Mr Tamihere, who has stood down from Cabinet duties while an inquiry into his financial affairs is completed, said he did not want to comment.

"It's like the tax I was supposed to have paid [on his golden handshake] ... It's just another side of the way they are working me over."

The trust has acknowledged it should have paid the tax. "We will therefore pay it, no option," said chief executive Reg Ratahi.

Mr Tolich said it was his responsibility, not Mr Tamihere's, to fill in vouchers authorising cheque payments or the cheques themselves.

Mr Tamihere would sign vouchers that were already filled in.

Vouchers should be accompanied by information verifying the legitimacy of the payment.

"Never in the years that I worked for the trust did the CEO John Tamihere oversee the cheque-signing process."

A Tamihere camp source said Mr Tamihere's role regarding payments ended with signing authorisations and he would not know whether cheques were then made out to cash.