We make spectacles of ourselves over the Toa Petroleum affair
Recluse property developer and businessman Tim Tepaki offers his views on the Toa Petroleum debacle.

We make spectacles of ourselves.
People of the world looking into the bubble of the Cook Islands must be falling over themselves laughing at the naivety of politicians going each other to score brownie points and a Chamber of Commerce putting the boot in to government with neither able to tell the difference between profit share and capital expenditure.
Any fool can figure out that guaranteed profit means profit has to be topped up to the guaranteed amount in the event of trading profit failing to yield the guaranteed amount and does not mean paying the guaranteed amount regardless. The notion the government and country will pay Toa the guaranteed profit of $1.2 million for the next eight years is unfounded and the probability is government never has to pay another dime, meaning the total capital outlay for the Toa transaction is the $1.75 million already paid plus court costs, making the whole debacle farcical.
The serious cost to the country is the players in this debacle have so lost the plot and overindulged that they allowed phantom writers to the press of probable foreign extraction to beat up on Cook Islanders and make spectacles of all Cook Islanders!
The question that should be asked and no one has been asking is what does Toa bring to the table for government, because I cannot imagine government transacting a profit share agreement if there is nothing in it for government, such as cheap fuel. And its no use blaming the court as the court simply prosecuted the legality or otherwise of the agreement between Toa and government and was not asked to prosecute the wider agreement and benefits thereof to the country, as that was not in the courts terms of reference.
I have a problem watching his fellow Cook Islanders Brett Porter, Sholan Ivaiti and Tingika Elikana being beaten around the head as if they did something wrong when I know they have the heart for the Cook Islands and will not knowingly harm their people, and I call on them to disclose what benefits Toa brings to the table. It is essential that benefits unfold before judgment is passed on anyone and I’m betting there is advantage by way of cheap fuel, and if so government should get on with it and allow Cook Islanders the benefit of cheaper fuel!
The Chamber of Commerce makes the point that it is a silly deal, of course it is a silly deal, but what is the Chamber’s solution to the problem of expensive fuel that led to return flights costing $2,000 to Mainhiki and $500 to other islands, which is a recipe for the demise of our outer islands?
It’s all very well running off at the mouth but the Chamber as champion for the private sector ought to remember the Toa deal is a private sector offer to government, which may not be ideal but a solution to the fuel crisis all the same. Left to me I would nationalize fuel supply, after all Government consumes most of the fuel imported, and then the Chamber and private sector will really have something to cry about won’t they?
I think the outburst by the Chamber on Toagate is more to do with local boy Bret Porter doing it instead of the foreign entities nesting in and running this country doing it. It’s time Cook Islanders wake up!

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