Build on higher points
p. 16 · Read in the full issue
By Florence Syme-Buchanan
Prime Minister Sir Geoffery
Henry estimates that it is going to cost at least SNZBO million (approx, SUS 47 million) to reconstruct Manihiki, but there could be a clash between experts and the islanders over where best to rebuild.
Manihikians want to rebuild Tanhunu and Tukao villages in exactly the same areas, but Sir Geoffery has said that this may result in the loss of support from overseas donors who want a “sensible relo cation plan”. The villages are apparently built on the lowest lying areas of the two biggest atolls in Manihiki lagoon. At the highest point, the atolls are only five metres above sea water. “Cook Islanders and Polynesians as a whole have a very passionate relationship with their land and I don’t know that the people of Manihiki would agree to a more futuristic, cyclone resistant town plan or they would simply want to rebuild where they have been stuck down by a cyclone,” Sir Geoffery said.
The government is taking a long-term view on the reconstruction of the Island and wants to turn the villages into model atoll settlements built on the safest areas.
But the government has admitted that the Manihiki people can’t be forced to build in a particular area. No one has been given the task of convincing the islanders that somewhere different to the previous village sites would be safer and more acceptable to donor agencies. They are still trying to assess how much damage to the cyclone battered northern islands will cost - what they already know is that recon struction will run into tens of millions.
An immediate SUS2OO,OOO has been made available by the United Nations for emergency relief to Manihiki. AUSAID and NZODA have indicated willingness to help and the Asian Development Bank has informed that government soft loans are available, said the Ministry of Finances Tupu Araiti. The Cook Islands government already owes Asian Development Bank over SNZ23 million (Approx. SUSI 4 mil lion) and will most likely be reluctant to enter into further debt.
Setting up the Manihiki telephone sys tem will alone cost well over SNZI mil lion, estimates Araiti. ■