Cooks budget delay causing grief for Pacific Games
Updated
There continues to be controversy over the Cook Islands' ability to run a successful Pacific Mini Games as the government continues to stall the release of its Games budget, and recent reports saying the roll-out of broadcasting rights have fallen over.
Presenter: Geraldine Coutts
Speaker: Ulamila Wragg, Radio Australia's Cook Islands reporter
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WRAGG: There's been a lot of write-up in the media about it and allegations that the country cannot host the mini games and there were threats from the mini games council that they might pull the games out of the Cook Islands. This has come about simply because there were statements made by our national sporting and Olympic committee that we are not able to run the games and there were even discussions about it in parliament and the deputy prime minister, Sir Terepai Maoate, really wanted them to come out and say what is it really about the games that they're not happy with. As the head of the local Olympic committee, Sir Geoffrey Henry, I spoke with him some time ago and he said that no it's not infrastructure that we are upset about, it is the fact that we are not getting any money, money that they need to pay the personnel, to pay for operations. So that really is the gist of it, Geraldine, but there is no money as I speak given to the Olympic committee to run this. That is to pay for personnel operating costs. But infrastructure-wise they say they're happy with that because the Chinese funded some 40-million dollars, New Zealand dollars, were given to the Cook Islands government. So it's all about paying personnel and operating costs.
COUTTS: Well sticking with the issue of money, because that seems to be the crux of it, Wilkie Rasmussun is in New Zealand or has just returned from New Zealand and he was trying to get about a million dollars from the Chinese and the budget is about to be handed down, so will there be an allocation in the budget?
WRAGG: Yes, Sir Geoffrey said that he and his team had made a proposal to the budget committee for 1.9 million dollars, 1.4r for the operating costs in the 0.5 million New Zealand dollars to pay for the host broadcaster. The host broadcaster, MOU was signed, that has been thrown out the window so there is no host broadcaster, it will cost the government half a million dollars. There is however likely that Sir Geoffrey and his team on the organising committee will get 1.4 million dollars when budget sits next week, that is the supplementary budget for 2009/2010 financial year. The money that Wilkie Rasmussun, our minister for the mini games that has gone to New Zealand to get, actually it's more a follow-up to the money that was promised and given to the Cook Islands government. So one-million dollars really has not come as a surprise, that's all been part of the package that they had to abide by, you know they had to complete a certain set of work before they could qualify for that.
COUTTS: So I mean the games are upon us aren't they, there's only a month a month or so to go. Is this enough to stave off and strikes and whatever that might have ensued if the money didn't come through, do you think they'll be able to run a successful mini games now?
WRAGG: Oh yes, I spoke to the Minister for Sport, Ngamau Munokoa, she said the government is ready to host the mini games and I later did a follow-up interview with Sir Geoffrey Henry and he said that yes, the Cook Islands can deliver but the only issue that he had was that money for operating costs. And the little information that we're getting from the Ministry of Finance regarding the budget that yes there is money in the coming budget for operating costs. So all in all everybody's keen and they're very positive that the games will deliver but just the day to day events that's really affecting some discussions here
