A representative of Niue has denied allegations that some people who're not living on the island are getting a free home, as part of the rebuilding work after Cyclone Heta in January.
Questions were raised by a Niue politician, O'Love Jacobsen, about who exactly was benefiting from 40 homes donated by the French Polynesian government.
Mrs Jacobsen says some people who're not living on the island are getting a free home, and others, whose homes were not devastated, and located in villages inland, outside the danger zone, also stand to gain.
But Niue's high commissioner to New Zealand, Hima Takalesi, says the issue needs to be clarified:
"Personally, I know of nobody who has been offered a house but they're not living on the island; that's something that has to be clarified with the Niue government. I think that was one of the prime requirements, that they put in place, was that first of all you had to own the house that was destroyed, and secondly you must have been living in it."
