Ngai Tahu Annual Report - what caught my eye

Ngai Tahu Annual report is out now. Go here to read it online.

I'm not going to do a big analysis - I'll leave that to the number crunchers but i will highlight a couple of areas that i noticed.

I found this interesting

"Governance


There have been a number of governance changes over the year in review. Mark Solomon resigned at the end of September 2008 and was replaced by Gerry Coates. Wally Stone’s departure in February saw Linda Constable step in as Interim Chair until the appointment of Trevor Burt on 1 August 2009. Mark Tume was not available for reappointment when his term ended on 30 June. Mark has been replaced by Catherine Drayton. We would like to pay tribute to all of our departing directors for their efforts over their time with NTHG. In particular we wish to acknowledge Wally Stone’s leadership and the performance of NTHG during his two and a half year stint as Chair.


Full subsidiary boards are in the process of being established for Ngāi Tahu Property, Ngāi Tahu Seafood and Ngāi Tahu Tourism. These boards will be populated with a cross-section of industry expertise, commercial and governance expertise and will all have Ngāi Tahu representation. As a result the role of the Ngāi Tahu Holdings Corporation Board will be redefined and mechanisms put in place to ensure the alignment of the subsidiary boards to the overall NTHG direction. We believe this will give us a strong governance structure moving forward."

These subsidiary boards sound good. All with Ngai Tahu representatives - i hope they go outside their usual circle of friends and get some new blood in, some new ideas and a wider cross-section of iwi membership being involved.

I notice we have reduced the amount of money spent on these items:

Rünanga Distributions & Development
Culture and Identity
Social Independence
Natural Resources, Tribal Properties and Mahinga Kai Cultural parks
Strategy and Influence
Whai Rawa Distributions and Development
Tribal Representation

From $12,859,000 to $10,189,000 that is a reduction of $2,670,000 or 21%

But I also notice this

"Short term employee benefits (senior management positions)(excluding redundancy/exit payments) have increased from $3,169,000 to $3,596,000".

 That is an increase of $427,000 or 13%

We have the following disclosed remuneration for employees of TRONT

Over $500,000 = 1
$500,000 - $400,000 = 0
$300,000 - $400,000 = 2
$200,000 - $300,000 = 8
$100,000 - $200,000 = 42

That is 53 people in the office Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu (thanks anon - good clarification) who earn over $100,000 a year. And that is an increase of 3. Talk about top-heavy!

How many are Ngai Tahu whanui?

So a tough year for our tribal income but not for some working in the office. Hui a tau will be interesting.
 
A final word from the kaiwhakahaere's report
 
"At one point this year, I was actually being called on a regular basis by whānau, old and young, offering to forego all manner of programmes, grants, subscriptions, anything to save the iwi money. How envious would be the chiefs of industry to hear of such selfless expressions from shareholders. But then we are an iwi, and ‘shareholder’ is an inadequate term to describe whānau bound by whakapapa and the pursuit of self-determination."
 
We have come a long way as an iwi and we have a long way to go.