Big repair bill for buildings

Finance Minister Hon Wilkie Rasmussen, who has been appointed by Cabinet as Coordinator for the Aitutaki Cyclone Pat recovery efforts, advised the Herald on Monday morning that it will cost an estimated $12 million to repair the buildings in Aitutaki damaged by Cyclone Pat when it struck the island early last Wednesday morning.
Up to 90 per cent of the buildings on the island had suffered some form of damage.
The assessment had come from Ata Herman who was appointed by government to assess the buildings.
Rasmussen said government had already appropriated $2.7 million which was part of a contingency fund. This money was designated as a disaster fund for this year and a large portion of it will be ear marked for Aitutaki. He said there was no need to go to parliament to appropriate money as the MFEM Act allowed government to use 1.5% of the total appropriation for the year.
Government also had $49,000 for immediate relief and would use $20,000 of this for food and fuel for the volunteers.
As to how donor partners would assist with the overall cost, Rasmussen said government had to conceive recovery programme, develop it and identify the priorities for reconstruction. He said it depended on what offers were made by aid partners such as New Zealand and Australia.
Rasmussen said the ADB was looking at renegotiating the $10 million loan provided as budget support for Economic Infrastructure, to put this towards cyclone costs. It was a concessional loan.
Government was also looking at unraveling the $16 million of aid money already being held.
Rasmussen said he would also talking to the banks to see what relief can be obtained for home owners with loans and mortgages. He said government could not exempt VAT payments as the law did not allow this but government may consider using the VAT collected for cyclone relief.
He also mentioned that public servants from Rarotonga would be going to Aitutaki to give public servants there the chance to take time off work to carry out repairs to their homes.