Hungry families wait while MUMA allegedly hoards supermarket vouchers
Another day, another ugly disclosure, and once again the Manukau Urban Māori Authority finds itself at the centre of it.
Fresh OIA material shared on X by Suit and Tie shows that one million dollars worth of supermarket vouchers were allocated to the Whānau Ora Commissioning Agency for distribution during the last census drive. These vouchers were meant to encourage participation by families who are doing it tough. That is the entire point.
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Instead, documents indicate that MUMA, who was a significant Whānau Ora provider may have ended up sitting on thousands of unused vouchers.
It gets worse.
The documents suggest the unused Pak’n Save vouchers were considered for staff morale boosters and even floated as Easter egg packages for staff and their whānau. What a whākn’ joke. Publicly funded assistance intended for struggling households, casually repurposed as internal perks.
MUMA operates in a region where families are genuinely struggling to put food on the table. Anyone who spends five minutes outside the bureaucratic bubble knows this. Against that backdrop, the idea of a registered charity stockpiling supermarket vouchers while families go without is indefensible.
The situation now sits within what is rapidly becoming the developing Willie Jackson and MUMA scandal. Each new document does not clarify matters. It compounds them.
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MUMA should immediately and publicly clarify three things.
First, whether these vouchers originated from the Stats NZ census drive that was specifically designed to reach hard to engage families.
Second, if not, exactly where the vouchers came from.
Third, why they remained unused while MUMA continued to receive funding from agencies such as Ministry of Social Development.
Credit where it is due. This story exists because Suit and Tie keeps filing OIA after OIA, asking the questions others will not. His relentless work is doing what too many journalists and politicians refuse to do: holding organisations, politicians and government departments to account with documents, not slogans. Click on the tweet and give him a follow.
MUMA likes to talk about outcomes, equity and community. Right now, the outcomes look like vouchers in a drawer, equity looks like staff perks, and community looks like an afterthought.
If this organisation wants to be taken seriously, it needs to front up. Because from the outside, MUMA does not look like an agency helping those in need. It looks like one going from bad to worse, with public money and public trust left to rot along the way
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Well, maybe the vouchers will pop up outside polling booths at the next election, handed out by bemoko-kauae'ed wāhine wearing Te Pāti Māori T shirts. Just sayin'.
I do have to say, Matua, that your invention and use of the words "whūk, whākd’" and other iterations of the same is truly inspired. May these fabulous spellings long continue to be used and propagated. And continue to safely bypass automatic deletion by algorithm-empowered automated keyword matching online!
Dear Matua, I do have 2 TOW-related questions I'd like to run past your wisdom so please let me know how to contact you. I can't find a link on the website. Thank you.