NZ Niueans

more active role

New Zealand Niueans plan a more active role in Niue’s eco nomic and political life in the wake of their party’s election success in late March.

The New Zealand backers of the Niue People’s Action Party want to fund development pro jects in Niuean villages which supported party candidates.

The party won four of the 20 seats in Niue’s legislative assembly, bringing the first taste of party politics to normally non-partisan elections. The party’s new MPs are its leader, Mr M. Young Vivian, Mr Morris Tafatau, Mr Uluvili Tohovaka and Mr Siona Talagi.

A New Zealand organiser, Mrs Via Holland, says the party formed out of years of frustra tion at Niue’s economic mis management, particularly of its SNZ million aid budget.

“The New Zealand (aid) money has been disappearing but we don’t know where it’s gone,” she says. A recent Niuean audit apparently found a large sum unaccounted for. The collapse over the years of every potentially profitable Niuean export venture had left the is land without any productive income.

“In Niue a lot of ordinary working people are really wor

ried because they have nothing to live on,” Mrs Holland said.

They lived off their own land and no longer earned even the little cash from exports such as bananas, limes, apple juice or coconut cream. The only in come earners were public service employees.

This economic imbalance within Niue and the lack of public spending on agriculture and village amenities in certain areas of the island has led to drastic outflow of Niueans.

About 10,000 now live in New Zealand with fewer than 2800 in Niue.

A recent New Zealand gov ernmental review called for im mediate action to stem this population loss but also stated Niue could never foresee itself as economically self-sufficient Mrs Holland said an NPAP priority was to get Niue’s only fruit processing factory back in business. The New Zealand Niuean community would also be asked to fund projects in the villages of Makefu, Hikutavake and Toi.

The party also intends questioning the monopoly on Niue’s administration held by the family of the Prime Minister, Sir Robert Rex. From Karen Mangnall, Auckland.

M. Young Vivian.