December 08, 2016
Puhipuhi protesters take aim at bank
Northland iwi Ngai Hau has challenged investors in a gold mine in its rohe to pull out.
A group including kuia and kaumatua travelled to Auckland yesterday to pay a surprise visit on Citibank.
MineWatch Northland spokesperson Tim Howard says the Citibank is the largest shareholder in Evolution Mining.
The group presented the bank’s risk manager with two bottles of water.
"One is the clean water from the current springs at Puhipuhi on which these whanaunga, the people who live in the community, rely on, and which is the real gift of this maunga Puhipuhi. Alongside that we had a bottle of toxic water that came from another mining context. The message we were giving really is water is life," Mr Howard says.
He says the protest aimed to tell Evolution’s bankers there is no support for its activities in Northland.
After the protest Citibank issued a statement saying that while Evolution’s annual report lists Citicorp Nominees as holding 34.95 percent of Evolution’s issued capital, those shares are administered as part of normal banking services, and Citibank has no shareholding in Evolution.
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