7 Apr 2005

Creditor asks police to seize money from Niue Investments

4:19 pm on 7 April 2005

A major creditor of ailing Niue Investments Limited says it will try today to seize 18,000 dollars from the firm's bank account in Niue.

Niue Investment Limited, Niue's only locally owned and run company, owes 103,000 dollars and has been struck off the Companies Register in New Zealand.

A creditor, Culling's Food Products, owed just over eighteen thousand dollars since October, has just received authority from the High Court in Niue to seize the money or property.

Cullings' managing director, Allan Culling, who like many Niueans, has 1,000 New Zealand dollars in shares in the firm, says he'll be asking police today to seize the money.

Niue Investment Limited, set up three years ago by the Niue Finance Minister, says it has 27,000 dollars in accounts in Niue and New Zealand.

Mr Culling says there may not be sufficient funds in the Niue account to cover his debt and he may have to go back to the judge for authority to take it from the New Zealand account.

He says the debt has made life a struggle for his firm, which he's since sold.

"We had to go to friends to get some money to keep us going. That's why we got enough money to help us survive. It made us struggle for a while, yeh. If we didn't have the friends who came to our aid, we would have gone under."

Mr Culling, a butcher, says the money owned by Niue Investments was for food for the Niue Hotel, destroyed by Cyclone Heta in January last year.