Hundreds of Methodist Church members of the Nabua division flocked to the divisional headquarters in Nabua yesterday to give whatever they could as part of their contributions to Fiji flood affected families in the Western Division. According to the divisional superintendent, Reverend Osea Bera, the division comprised 13 churches including Vatuwaqa and the Republic of Read more
Posts Tagged ‘Aid’
Millions in NZ aid to Pacific spent on Air NZ flights
Friday, March 2nd, 2012For the past two financial years millions in NZ aid to Pacific has been spent on Air NZ flights. The Cook Islands has spent half the $3 million of New Zealand aid money it receives for tourism annually on its underwrite arrangement with Air New Zealand.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade says a total of $3.8 million in aid money went towards the Samoan and Tongan Governments’ providing a temporary underwrite to the airline between 2009 and 2011.
The director of Victoria University’s Development Studies programme, John Overton, said aid development could be better spent. “I’m definitely uneasy about New Zealand Aid money being used to subsidize in effect the commercial operations of a New Zealand company in this case Air New Zealand, which would seem to be counter to any of the stated objectives of the New Zealand Aid programme either now or especially in the past.”
Read the article...Did Tongan Auditor General really call McCully two faced?
Friday, February 17th, 2012
A diplomatic incident standoff between Tonga and New Zealand has been bubbling away about some unaccounted for aid money. The Tongan Auditor General was the first to raise the issue in November when he discovered after the elections, that around $250,000 of the donor money could not be accounted for. The money had been transferred from Treasury to Read more
Poor to wait 200 years for sanitation
Tuesday, November 15th, 2011
Global efforts to increase access to clean water favours the middle-classes and ignores most of those in need. WaterAid Charity says a global plan to halve the number of people without access to sanitation by 2015, is failing so badly that some of the world’s poorest countries will not have this basic necessity for another Read more
China will go its own way
Tuesday, October 4th, 2011
The United States has been told China will go its own way with its growing aid and investment in the South Pacific and does not support combined efforts, a senior US official said Tuesday. At a 16-nation Pacific island summit this month in New Zealand, Chinese officials explained they were “not particularly interested in sharing” Read more