Ministry of Agriculture negotiating with Bank of Cook Islands

The new $3.5million agriculture scheme to benefit the growers in the Outer Islands has already been announced by the Minister of Agriculture. However, the finer details of how to implement the new scheme with the minimal of bureaucratic red tape or costs are yet to be defined.
Negotiations are being held to engage the services of our national bank, the Bank of Cook Islands. The idea is to have the BCI as a facility to be used “to drawdown on funds at minimum costs” according to new Secretary of Agriculture, Anthony Brown.
Parties to the discussions are Brown from Agriculture, Vaine Arioka of BCI, the Financial Secretary, Sholan Ivaiti and Terry Rangi of Business Trade and Development Board.
The scheme is that planters are to have their vegetables in the ground by mid February ready to be on line for sale by May and for the growers to be able to access their payments from the BCI in a similar way as welfare benefits are accessed through the bank. BCI would be an ideal conduit as they already have branches in the outer islands and are used by the community.
The is about empowerment of the people of the outer islands to contribute to earn a livelihood for themselves while contributing to the economic development of the country and The outcome of negotiations will be announced early next week.

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