PRESS RELEASE from WHALEOIL
For Immediate Release
Date: 9 March 2010
WHALEOIL to Appear Before Select Committee to Expose Ministry Incompetence & Troughing
Well known New Zealand blogger Whaleoil (Cameron Slater) is appearing before the Maori Affairs Select Committee to expose the excessive troughing of tax-payer funding by anti-tobacco groups.
“I expect the Committee to be shocked and outraged when I present my findings to the Committee tomorrow as they hold their inquiry into the tobacco industry” said Mr Slater.
“I will be bringing along a wine box of documents obtained under the Official Information Act to demonstrate a complete disregard for the accountability of taxpayer money by the Ministry of Health, alongside the incompetence of anti-tobacco groups who have received millions of dollars with little to show for it.”
“Groups like Te Reo Marama and its director Shane Kawenata Bradbrook received hundreds of thousands of taxpayer funding from the Ministry to help Maori stop smoking, yet spent most of the time on overseas junkets to exotic destinations like Hawaii (3 times), Bangkok Thailand, Durban South Africa, Helsinki in Finland and Mumbai India.
“And all the Ministry got from Mr Bradbrook was a couple of reports and a performance which resulted in a “damning” internal Ministry audit report.
It simply is not good enough for New Zealand to continue pouring $55 million into stop smoking programmes for little or no return. The only people it is helping are the NGO troughers rorting the system, who are now asking the select committee to recommend they get more money.
Of all the submitters I am the only one with zero conflicts of interests, there is nothing for me to gain or lose by my submission. The rest are either involved in receiving government money, or deciding who gets the government money or in a few cases doing both.
……….
Whaleoil
(Cameron Slater)
whaleoil@gotcha.co.nz
