Transcript
Mark Brown: Well, we're hoping to have the work completed before the full commissioning of our new water system. The intakes are in the final stages of the construction, and they'll be going through testing very shortly. And we hope to have the pipelines in the areas we've identified replaced in time to meet the commissioning that's going to be required for the for the whole intake, for the whole system.
Mackenzie Smith: Is that going to be next year?
MB: Well we were looking at December as the commissioning of our stage two of Te Mato Vai, which is the intake so we're looking still at December/January as the completion date.
MS: What about the prospect of legal action against this Chinese contractor. Has that progressed?
MB: That's a matter that's still being discussed between the contractor and our ministry of finance, and for me that's that's really a contractual dispute, and it's something that will take its due course and through the process.
MS: New Zealand has earmarked several million dollars for some of this repair work. Did they raise concerns about this contract or this Chinese company?
MB: This was negotiated going back seven years ago now. And this was a first of its kind, this trilateral agreement that was put in place. So it's something that all of us, all three parties, Cook Islands, New Zealand and China, were looking forward to as something of a first in a tripartite agreement of this type. So no, there was no concerns about the contract itself or the company. There was due diligence involved in terms of the material and the quality of that material, and that's been proven to be sound. It's really a contract dispute around work, more to do with the workmanship, rather than the quality of materials and so forth.
MS: Would anything like this happen again, after what's happened here?
MB: Oh, of course, certainly. It's the first of its kind. There were many lessons to be learned in terms of standards to be set with three different jurisdictions involved. How do we standardise those. But I certainly see future projects being able to be done in this way between three different parties. It's the nature of blended finance now that small island states like ours rely on to be able to do major projects.
MS: Would Cook Islands still work with China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation?
MB: Well, that remains to be seen. It's something that we'll negotiate in the future, along contractual terms similar to what we do with any contractor that comes to do work in our country, whether it's a New Zealand contractor, an Australian contractor or a Chinese contractor.
