The Office of Hawaiian Affairs pays $70K to controversial scholar for work he never produced – IOTW Report

The Office of Hawaiian Affairs pays $70K to controversial scholar for work he never produced

I checked, it’s not Obama.

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) –

The Office of Hawaiian Affairs paid $70,000 to a former felon at the center of the Hawaiian sovereignty debate for a report he never produced, according to internal agency documents obtained by Hawaii News Now.

Back in 2009, the state agency hired Keanu Sai to produce a book-length study on the history of land tenure in Hawaii.

It was supposed to be completed in a year but Hawaii News Now learned that Sai never turned in a page of that report.

OHA finally wrote off the contract in 2015.

“Six years has (passed) … with no clear print date in sight, OHA decided to terminate,” wrote Lisa Watkins-Victorino, OHA’s research director.

Political watchdog and native Hawaiian Ian Lind said OHA should have never hired Sai in the first place.

“I think it’s worse than wasted. It’s gone to support this false theory of how Hawaii got to be where it is and it’s leading his followers in a very dangerous direction,” Lind said. “It’s the kind of a theory that lends itself to con artists and fraudsters.”

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