The Registrar of Indigenous Corporations, Selwyn Button has today extended the special administration of the Kokatha Aboriginal Corporation RNTBC (KAC) for the second time.
Based in Port Augusta in South Australia, the corporation’s primary responsibility is to manage the native title rights and interests of the Kokatha people. The Kokatha people are traditional owners of an area of land estimated to be over 140,000 square kilometres in central South Australia.
The Registrar placed the corporation under special administration on 23 September 2019 after an examination of the books identified a range of governance issues requiring professional assistance to address. The original appointment set to end on 27 March was extended to 10 July 2020 and is now further extended to 9 October 2020. Mr Peter McQuoid will continue as special administrator.
‘The special administrator has made significant progress and while almost all of KAC’s services have continued during the coronavirus pandemic, the restrictions have held up some important decision-making processes,’ Mr Button said.
‘As with all registered native title bodies corporate, KAC must facilitate two main types of decisions—matters to be decided by the Kokatha common law holders and matters for the corporation members.
‘With over 750 corporation members, and many more people who are common law holders, it’s not easy to facilitate all decision-making by virtual means. We anticipate the meetings can be held by September.
‘In the meantime the special administrator is continuing to work on simplifying the business structure of the Kokatha group. The Kokatha group has unnecessarily complicated business operations where there is no or limited benefit to the Kokatha Aboriginal Corporation, in fact it bears significant costs to the group.’
Background
See the Registrar’s previous media release of 23 September 2019: South Australian native title corporation under special administration (MR1920-04)
Media contact
Lisa Hugg 0477 762 290
10 July 2020