IT took one determined woman to initi

ate and achieve the country’s biggest prop erty deal - a transaction that’s expected to motivate an economic turn-around for the Cook Islands.

Paramount chief, Pa Upokotini Ariki has sold a 60-year lease and the massive,

incomplete Vaimaanga hotel buildings

which spread across ten hectares of land on Rarotonga to two overseas entities.

Max Holdings, a consortium of Japanese business people, will hold fourth fifth shares.

The remaining one-fifth share is owned by international hotel management compa ny, Castle Group of Hawaii.

Pa Ariki was paid goodwill of $300,000 and stands to earn one percent of accom modation profits. The hotel is expected to

Reconstruction of Vaimaanga hotel expected to turn Cooks around

By Florence Syme-Buchanan

be completed June 2000, but may start oper ating before then.

The former state-owned Vaimaanga hotel was like an albatross around the Cook Islands government’s neck.

The government’s original contract with landowner Pa Ariki was that the hotel would be completed within three years - but that time limit dragged on.

Over the past five years there had been much official talk of sale negotiations, but things went little went further than secret meetings and the occasional announce

ments of yet another interested buyer.

At one time, the government owed at least $126,000 million for the partially com plete hotel - a sum representing the bulk of the country’s national debt. Debt restructur ing with Italian creditors late last year sig

nificantly reduced that figure.

Maybe it was with a certain amount of relief that the government lost the Hotel last year after failing to pay Pa Ariki ground rental worth tens of thousands. The para mount chief re-entered the property and for feited the lease.

“This effectively removed the Italian creditors from any sort of claim to the

Vaimaanga land and buildings, so not sur prisingly, the forfeiture of the old lease and the offer of a new one brought renewed interest from a variety of parties,” said Pa Ariki.

And selling it she says is a “win-win sit uation for everyone.”

Pa Ariki said she’s recovered her losses of the past five years and won back part of the land.

“Best of all, the Cook Islands people can look forward to the economy getting a huge boost as the work is pushed to completion and this new, high profile hotel takes its place in the market.”

Re-construction by Fletcher Pacific is scheduled to start this month and will cost between NZ$25 million to NZ$3O million. ■